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What It Was Really Like To See Jaws In 1975

Maybe you grew up watching "Jaws" every summer. Maybe you saw it once in your childhood and vowed to never see it again after enduring nightmares. Maybe you've never seen it at all but know its evocative music (composed by the legendary John Williams), often mimicked or even sampled in other films and television shows. Perhaps you even have memories of a giant shark attacking your ride at Universal Studios during a family vacation to Hollywood or Orlando.

Whatever your level of familiarity with "Jaws," Steven Spielberg's classic shark attack movie, the film is so integrated into the pop culture consciousness that it's hard to imagine a time when it was new. But when the movie debuted in summer 1975, the tropes of "Jaws" weren't tropes — they were first-of-their-kind experiments. The movie's story wasn't iconic, it was unknown. So what was it really like to see "Jaws" in 1975? Let's find out.

Jaws was like an Alfred Hitchcock movie

Today, if you hear Steven Spielberg is attached to a film, you automatically know what to expect from the project in question. That kind of news paints a picture in your mind and elevates your interest in the movie based on Spielberg's signature style of direction , which we've seen play out across decades and genres.

However, if we're not counting TV movies like "Duel," "Jaws" was only the second full-length film  Steven Spielberg had directed. He wasn't a household name yet. With just "The Sugarland Express" under his theatrical belt, critics and audiences wouldn't have been able to compare and contrast his movies or study them in great detail. This is unlike today, when we can chart his career and attempt to define what makes him unique.

As such, when "Jaws" hit theaters in 1975, audiences sought an established director they could compare Spielberg's work to. In the 2019 CNN docuseries "The Movies," Deadline Hollywood critic Pete Hammond pointed toward a director who was a household name at the time — one who Spielberg might've reminded audiences of. "He made this like the kind of shark movie that Alfred Hitchcock might have made," Hammond remarked.

From "Psycho" to "The Birds," Hitchcock's well-known filmography was the stuff of nightmares (in the best way possible) and certainly not for the faint of heart. In 1975, his was the perfect directorial style to use as a frame of reference when watching a town under siege by a very hungry shark.

It was as frightening as The Exorcist

In 1975, audiences would've definitely been familiar with "The Exorcist," a horror movie released two years earlier that told a tale of demonic possession. In other words, the textbook definition of a scary movie was on everyone's mind, and quite a few people compared William Friedkin's infamous classic to the newly released "Jaws." In his 1975 review of Spielberg's flick,  famed movie critic Roger Ebert wrote , "It's a film that's as frightening as 'The Exorcist,' and yet it's a nicer kind of fright, somehow more fun because we're being scared by an outdoor-adventure saga instead of by a brimstone-and-vomit devil." Oh, well as long as it's more fun than a brimstone-and-vomit devil, why didn't you say so?

Public word-of-mouth wanted to make it clear what audiences were getting themselves into when they went to see "Jaws." As the podcast " The Movie Bin " points out, there was no such thing as a PG-13 rating when "Jaws" debuted. Its violence, while foreboding, wasn't graphic enough to necessitate an R rating, and so it wound up rated PG — a benchmark that by today's standards is decidedly more family friendly than "Jaws" was ever going to be. Critics like Ebert using "The Exorcist" as a comparison sounded an alarm loud and clear: "Jaws" was s-c-a-r-y.

It was a shared experience

Anyone who saw "Avengers: Endgame" its opening week in theaters can tell you that movies have the power to unite strangers and elicit excitement. If an audience is invested enough in the story, their vocal response can make moviegoing a truly special shared experience. Audiences in 1975 weren't cheering on superheroes, though. They were screaming in terror. "Jaws" producer Richard Zanuck recalled to The New York Times , "People were ripping out the seats. The place went crazy."

A large portion of "Jaws" plays the long game. A general aura of fear is present in scenes much more often than actual jump scares or action-related violence. Still, there are a few moments when the shark's doll-like eyes and insatiable appetite lead to downright terrifying cinema. It was all part of Spielberg's master plan. He studied test screenings and made slight adjustments as needed to optimize those tense sequences for maximum scream factor.

The marketing machine was huge

Many aspects of a movie release are so commonplace today that we hardly think twice about them. If a new film is slated to debut, especially during the summer and especially from a major studio like Universal, audiences can expect a huge marketing campaign ahead of the film's release. That wasn't necessarily the case in 1975.

In the docuseries "The Movies," film historian Neal Gabler explained, "'Jaws' was the first real gigantic blockbuster. Heavily advertised, [it] opened on a 'billion' screens at the same time. It became a cultural milestone immediately. It changed everything." The word "blockbuster" itself was new language.

The New York Times detailed the meteoric rise of "Jaws," which involved a huge emphasis on TV ads — a relatively new method at the time. And as the newspaper explained, "Three days before the opening, [Universal] unleashed a massive national advertising blitz, centering on the image of the shark's mouth pointing vertically up at a swimming girl." The image showed up on everything from posters to the cover of the book "Jaws" was based on. Plus, the movie was released simultaneously across the country on the same date — a "wide" release — which was a relatively uncommon practice. All in all, the final price tag of the film's marketing push was $700,000, a record for Universal.

Jaws was box-office gold

For the time, Universal sunk a huge amount of money into the promotional blitz for "Jaws" ... and it massively paid off. The film  debuted in June 1975 with a domestic opening weekend of $7,061,513 in 409 theaters, for a per-theater average of $17,265. Movies today open in many, many more theaters than that, and the American dollar is worth a very different amount of money, but we can do some math to a modern blockbuster to figure out a fair comparison. 

In December 2021, "Spider-Man: No Way Home" debuted with a domestic opening weekend of $260,138,569 in 4,336 theaters , for a per-theater average of $59,995. Adjusted for inflation , the opening weekend of "Jaws" would've achieved a little over $90,000 per theater today. When considering the boom that "No Way Home" provided to cineplexes, it's wild to imagine "Jaws" rocking the per-theater average even more.

In the end, "Jaws" grossed $260 million during its original 1975 theatrical run ... or $1.3 billion when adjusted for 2022 inflation . In other words, when you take that inflation into account , "Jaws" is one of the highest-grossing films of all time, beating out the likes of "Avatar" and "Avengers: Endgame." To say the least, Universal had a hit on its hands.

A pop culture phenomenon

The combination of innovative filmmaking, positive word-of-mouth, and a huge marketing push was the perfect formula for "Jaws" to become a phenomenon in its opening summer. In an ABC newscast from September 1975 , anchor Peter Jennings described "Jaws" as "a movie executive's dream." 

Even beyond financial success, the movie's cultural impact took over America's summer paraphernalia. That aforementioned newscast highlighted scores of official and unofficial merch, from T-shirts, socks, and bathing suits using the movie's official poster to shark jewelry. Basically, if it was shark-related, consumers couldn't get their hands on it fast enough. (Etsy is quaking.) Peter Benchley, author of the novel that inspired the movie, remarked that it was "normal commercial instinct to ride the bandwagon while the bandwagon's hot."

Steven Spielberg recalled ( via The New York Times ) how he walked through an ice cream shop that summer and every conversation he overheard was about the movie. In other words, "Jaws" took the nation by storm, giving a taste of what was to come from Spielberg's forthcoming career.

It created a newfound fear of sharks

In addition to the movie's massive fandom, there was another real-world cultural impact as a result of "Jaws." The movie's terrifying depiction of sharks led many beachgoers in 1975 to be more hesitant and afraid of ocean activities. The fear, if objectively irrational, is understandable to anyone who's seen the film. Play in the ocean when that thing could attack? Pass! 

On July 13, 1975 — just a few weeks after "Jaws" was released — Los Angeles Times writer Robert E. Dallos ( via The Poughkeepsie Journal ) wrote about the "shark mania" that had come over beachgoers. Suddenly, people preferred the shore to the ocean. There was a lack of long-distance swimmers that summer. And, of course, there was an increase in shark-sighting reports. "Any fish in the water now becomes a shark," a Florida lifeguard said in the same article.

According to a 2021 study by Prof. Brianna Le Busque of the University of South Australia, the stigma still exists to a degree today, thanks to the film's lasting impact and similarly negative shark depictions it inspired in other movies. The conservation outlet Mongabay also described a "Jaws effect" coined by Christopher Neff from the University of Sydney, which is "the belief that sharks intentionally bite humans, that human-shark encounters are always fatal, and that sharks should be killed to prevent future attacks." And Prof. Le Busque found that 96% of shark representation in film and television was negative, stemming from the precedent set by "Jaws."

It was a breath of fresh air, literally

Something that seems like a given when going to the movies today is air conditioning. Believe it or not, before 1975, many theaters didn't have it. Summertime, no air, and a room packed full of people? No, thank you! That would make any moviegoing experience miserable, no matter how incredible the film was. However, HVAC companies cite "Jaws" as one of the first major motion pictures to be released when air conditioning was widely available in movie theaters, and they're proud to attribute part of the film's massive success to their installation of AC units. One can imagine that perhaps the popularity of "Jaws" was aided by moviegoers hoping to beat the summer heat by getting the scares on in a nice, chilled room. It's a reminder that every role is important in the movie business, even if at first glance it has nothing to do with filmmaking itself. So many different fields make the industry possible, and all work together to pull it off. 

Jaws was a filmmaking masterclass

"Jaws" wasn't just an exciting movie — it was a well-made movie in director Steven Spielberg's competent hands. "Jaws" inspired many future directors as a reference point for how to tell a story and how to visually thread a narrative, as shared in a Universal featurette . For example, M. Night Shyamalan was about to turn 5 years old the summer that "Jaws" debuted. He would one day direct such influential thrillers as "Signs" and "The Sixth Sense," and he said he "aggressively pursued 'Jaws' as a way to learn from the master. I saw the light, you know? I saw 'Jaws' and [thought], 'That's the promised land. That's what you have to aim for.'"

Robert Rodriguez — the man behind "From Dusk Till Dawn," "Spy Kids," and "Desperado" — said "Jaws" left him "wanting to make movies that were larger than life." And Eli Roth — who directed the director behind horror films like "Hostel" and "The Green Inferno" — had nothing but praise for Spielberg's classic, explaining, "I think that anyone that wants to make big Hollywood blockbusters movies was certainly inspired by 'Jaws.'"

There's a lot to study in "Jaws," and whether its pupils have gone on to helm huge Hollywood films or are simply inspired by the movie in a more subtle way, Steven Spielberg is proud. In the same video, he remarked, "I'm always grateful when anybody, especially a young director, comes over to me and tells me they were in some way strangely influenced by 'Jaws.'"

There were a few stray dissenters

It turns out you can't please everybody, even with what can be widely acknowledged as a classic like "Jaws." It sits at an admirable 98% on Rotten Tomatoes , which means there were at least a few critics who weren't impressed. In 1975, film critic Charles Champlin,  writing for the Los Angeles Times , called "Jaws" "a bore, awkwardly staged and lumpily written." Champlin claimed the movie had a "stubborn refusal of the key characters to come in to sharp focus," and he was especially taken aback by the horror-esque elements that Spielberg employed to scare the audience. Champlin closed by questioning "what it takes to entertain these days." One could maybe infer that he wasn't a fan of the film as a suspense thriller rather than the film itself, in which case, anything the movie attempted would not be his cup of tea, so the review might not be entirely fair. But hey, to each their own.

Jaws worked like a magic trick

Even if "Jaws" still holds up as a watchable — let alone incredible — film nearly 50 years after it debuted, technology has come a long way since 1975. If the movie were to be made today, it would likely include a heavy dosage of computer-generated imagery. If the director were to prefer a more practical approach to special effects, at the very least the shark animatronic would look a little bit better than the final version of the shark as it appeared in 1975. Today, we can pretty easily tell that most shots of the shark in "Jaws" are of a robotic figure. We're so trained by the special effects wizardry of modern filmmaking that 1975's best efforts feel archaic now.

We can look back on "Jaws" and maybe chuckle a bit at the shark's appearance, but in 1975, audiences completely bought it. Back in the day, Arthur Knight, a film critic for The Hollywood Reporter , commended the limited use of real shark footage paired with the animatronic and "masterful editing" to create an illusion in which it was "literally impossible to say for sure which one is which." Okay, so maybe today we can tell which one is which, but it's a testament to the film's effectiveness that the old tech isn't a distraction and the movie still works.

Jaws was cinematic perfection

Some commercially successful films aren't critically accepted at the time of their release and only become beloved after generations of adoration. Other films simply don't get much attention at all in their initial run and years later find a following and become something of a cult classic . Neither was the case for "Jaws." 

Instead, it hit a home run in every category possible from the very beginning. In 1975, The Hollywood Reporter  called it "perhaps the most perfectly constructed horror story in our time."​​ It was acknowledged almost immediately as a standard-setter and something that the 1970s era of filmmaking would be remembered by. It was even nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards . How often do you know, in the moment, that movie history is being made? "Jaws" achieved that rare feat.

There are few summer movies, or even movies, period, that stack up to "Jaws" in terms of critical acclaim, audience response, and legacy. It will be inspiring future filmmakers, scaring audiences, and making waves at the movies for decades to come.

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Jaws review – serial killer masterpiece that leaves teeth marks

Spielberg’s 1975 suspense classic is a picture of pre-bicentennial angst to rival Robert Altman’s Nashville

H ere it comes, looming back out of the water: a restored print of Steven Spielberg’s serial-killer masterpiece from 1975; a film that apart from everything else, invented the “forensic-autopsy-running-commentary” scene, delivered by a scientist trying not to puke. It was adapted from Peter Benchley’s filthier bestseller: a killer shark with the cunning of a U-boat commander is eating swimmers, and threatening to destroy the precarious prosperity of a US beach resort over the 4 July weekend. As a picture of pre-bicentennial angst, Jaws stands alongside Robert Altman’s Nashville.

Richard Dreyfuss, Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw are the three glorious hombres of 70s Hollywood tracking down the shark, whose presence is signalled by John Williams’s orchestral theme, the creepiest since Herrmann’s Psycho. All have something to prove: Dreyfuss is oceanographer Hooper, a superbly natural, utterly real performance, who has to show he’s man enough to take down the big fish. Scheider’s police chief has to redeem himself after participating in that contemporary political phenomenon, a cover-up: he withheld information about the shark to protect tourism. And Shaw’s grizzled seadog Quint is haunted by a chilling wartime memory.

Don’t listen to the cynics who claim the shark looks iffy now. This is a suspense classic that leaves teeth-marks.

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Why 'Jaws 2' Was the Only Good Sequel of the Franchise

Before the shark went 3D or got revenge, 'Jaws' was in one other good movie.

Jaws was a phenomenon the likes of which have never been replicated. The large scale project had gone millions of dollars over budget and months over schedule, and the fate of it rested on the shoulders of a novice 27-year-old director; yet it went on to define the summer blockbuster, garner copious award nominations, and establish Steven Spielberg as a powerhouse filmmaker. Within days of the movie’s release, Universal greenlit a sequel, eager to secure another big hit. What followed was a year-and-a-half of troubled pre-production, a grueling shoot on the open ocean, fractured relationships and a lukewarm critical reception. But while none of the sequels that eventually materialized could hope to measure up to their big brother, Jaws 2 proved itself a formidable and justifiably memorable follow-up.

It is four years after the shark attacks on Amity Island, and Martin Brody’s glory days as the town hero have dwindled. The movie opens with two divers exploring the wreckage of the Orca, who are suddenly attacked by a toothy menace. When their camera is recovered and Brody ( Roy Scheider ) gets the developed photos, he sees a sight that is all too familiar, and rushes to confront the local council with this development. Mayor Larry Vaughn (played again by Murray Hamilton ) seems to have learned nothing from the previous debacle or lost his title over his handling of it, and once again gangs up on Brody, insisting there is no problem. Brody’s son Mike is now a high schooler, and enjoys a cruise culture in sailboats that inland teenagers do in cars. Brother Sean coaxes him into taking him on a sailing trip, and the gang of youngsters set out, unaware of the danger. When further shark casualties start piling up and Brody hears of the trip, he takes a boat out to save the kids and the island once again.

In a year that film looked to appeal to a younger crowd, the narrative of Jaws 2 focuses much more on an ensemble teenage cast than any adult characters besides Brody. With a dozen or so young characters, it gets perhaps a little overcrowded, allowing some of them little development, but it certainly ups the ante when Brody races to save them, and adds to the frantic energy of each attack scene. Of course, this is quite the downgrade from the darkly intriguing musings of Quint ( Robert Shaw ) and his passive-aggressive class war with Hooper ( Richard Dreyfuss ), but Universal had already passed on the prospect of a darker narrative focused on the town’s decline and corruption, instead looking to appease the crowds with a lighter spirit.

Jaws 2 knocked it out of the park at the box office. It became the third highest-grossing film of 1978, behind Grease and Animal House , and enjoyed the status of the highest-grossing opening weekend and highest-grossing sequel of all time for many years. Roger Ebert described 1978 as “a year when people went to the movies to escape, to be entertained, and not necessarily to think or be challenged,” and it is true that Jaws 2 lacks the heavy tone or thought-provoking characterization of its predecessor. Now that big fun summer movies were an annual event, the public was expecting easy, carefree entertainment, and Jaws 2 seemed to be exactly to their taste.

Jaws itself can be difficult to define: it is dramatic, but too exciting to be a drama; it is at times funny without being written as a comedy; it is too serious and not scary enough to be horror. If anything, it is a character-driven adventure story with elements of thriller, tragedy and some light banter. It is a rich patchwork of many storytelling elements, intricately woven to reflect real life: a bit of everything. Jaws 2 , on the other hand, teeters on the edge of being a teen slasher, the likes of which were becoming insanely popular at the time. It is all about the shark attacks, and the more of them, the better. Once the shark has the gang of boating teens in its sights, the action cuts back and forth between the kids being stalked and/or eaten, to Brody pursuing them, or his wife Ellen ( Lorraine Gary ) and Deputy Hendricks ( Jeffrey Kramer ) trying to assist, all but abandoning any focus on character.

Although many seemingly forget the very clear shot of the boat guy getting pulled under by the shark in Jaws , the lack of visible fish in the first half is still a frequent talking point. Continuous malfunctioning forced Spielberg to improvise, and cut a lot of the shark’s screen time, so to speak, a move that ended up working in his favor and earning him praise for his accidentally Hitchcockean approach to suspense. Any such notion goes out the window for Jaws 2 ; after all, this was more of a teenage movie, and the studio had no doubts over what the appeal of their franchise was. The shark here gets much more screen time, and as a result, the crew were tasked with pulling off some very delicate balancing acts on the open ocean, the success of which hung on the mercy of the wind, tides and weather. This leads to some less than perfect shark shots ending up in the final cut, the most amusing being visible hydraulics in the creature’s throat, and the shark seemingly forgetting to open his mouth as he rams a boat.

While the fully practical effects of the first two movies can feel dated to some, there is no question that they hold up much better when compared to alternatives, and when the logistics are considered, they become an even bolder venture. Jaws 3 dared to move into the computer generated world to create its sharks, as well as poorly-matched stock footage and horribly immobile models, and while Jaws: The Revenge stuck mostly to animatronics, the quality was not good. A close second to the first movie, Jaws 2 musters some good shark effects with some creative new additions, such as POV shots that involve a cameraman riding the shark’s back. .

After a tumultuous time in pre-production, John D. Hancock left the director’s chair empty for Jaws 2 , eventually being replaced by Jeannot Szwarc . Faced with a difficult and prolonged shoot, and a leading man who resented being there, Szwarc valiantly pulled a troubled production together and got the most out of challenging conditions. His direction lacks the subtlety and emotional drive of Spielberg’s, and the setup doesn’t allow for much thematic gravity, but Szwarc clearly understood the spirit of the first movie, and worked hard to make this sequel feel like an organic development of it.

RELATED: Every Steven Spielberg Movie Ranked from Worst to Best

With Spielberg refusing to return to direct, having achieved all he wanted to with the story, a key challenge for Szwarc was creating a sequel that stylistically felt like a natural extension of his film. John Williams ’ score is one of the defining features in this regard, bringing his signature whimsy and dramatic charm to the picture. His work on the original notably played with not only the infamous shark motif, but with jaunty, upbeat melodies for the men’s adventures on the high seas; for Jaws 2 he applies that same chipper energy to the pieces written for the young characters, while heavy orchestral numbers ramp up the tension of the attack sequences. So integral was Williams’ score to the tonal success of Jaws that the sequel could never have hoped to work so well without his involvement.

Roy Scheider’s first go-round on the shores of Martha's Vineyard was physically and mentally difficult, as it was for everybody involved in the shoot, but having recently dropped out of The Deer Hunter , Scheider was being taken to task by Universal, and was contractually obligated to reprise the role of Brody. His tense working relationship with director Jeannot Szwarc led to a forced intervention that ended in a punch-up, and Scheider was generally miserable throughout the shoot. To his credit though, he did not let this bitterness interfere with his performance.

For all the jibes it gets about screaming kids, Jaws 2 is very well acted. A drawback of many scary films — including the later Jaws sequels — is that characters don’t seem to be very afraid when they are in terrifying situations. However, a number of the young actors here, particularly Donna Wilkes as Jackie and Ann Dusenberry as Tina, give it their all, and convey absolute hysteria very effectively. Roy Scheider channels his ill feelings over the job into Brody, who by this point in life is at his breaking point, stressed, scared and knowing that he is the only one who will bring this second wave of attacks to an end. He may have resented his involvement, but Scheider delivers a fine performance, and is once again compelling as a leading man with fears and inefficiencies.

In an intriguing parallel of Scheider’s experience on set, Brody’s development as the reluctant hero is what elevates the movie and gives it its emotional center. In the first film, he is the relatable everyman thrust into a situation he is totally unprepared for, and emerges victorious, but this time around, he lacks the professional and moral support of Quint and Hooper. Despite his previous heroism, the dynamic of Amity has clearly shifted, and Vaughn doesn’t even think enough of Brody to give him the benefit of the doubt. His professional life is strained by the disinterest of his community, whose lack of faith pushes him to more extreme measures: he scares a beach full of tourists by firing his gun into the ocean at what turns out to be a harmless school of fish; he wades out into the water only to be jump scared by a burned corpse; eventually, he commandeers Hendricks’ police boat alone to save the kids. His children have grown and now sneak around and defy him, and his wife Ellen is keeping busy working for Len Peterson, a property developer who eventually orders Brody’s dismissal. A shot of his Amity Man of the Year award sitting in the shadows is particularly telling of Brody’s inner struggles.

The wider aftermath of the 1975 attacks is touched on, although not to the extent that Peter Benchley ’s novel or earlier script drafts did, and given the abrupt ending of Jaws , it helps to fill in the gaps. There is a big push to remarket Amity as the ideal family summer destination, with Peterson launching a new resort on the island; this of course sways the reactions of the town officials. After such a PR nightmare and several years of trying to cover the tracks, Vaughn and his colleagues are not about to jeopardize their rebrand by listening to the ramblings of an over-the-hill police chief. Considering the political undertones of the town dynamic, the question of what happens next for Brody is raised: there is still a new resort to peddle, so will his latest heroic efforts redeem him in the eyes of Amity, or will this prove to be the nail in the coffin for his career and his life as an islander? Will this improve his self-esteem or strengthen his relationship with his sons?

While critics were not exactly blown away by the long-awaited Jaws sequel, it delivered everything that audiences wanted. It developed the story of the Brody family and of Amity Island, and it offered lots of fun scares and sharky goodness. A strong cast, determined director and superb composer made it better than it really had any right to be. Of course, the very existence of the hilarious Jaws 3 and the truly depressing Jaws: The Revenge are owed to this surprisingly successful second chapter, but if nothing else, it stands out as one of the most entertaining and financially successful sequels in Hollywood history, and the only other Jaws movie that wasn’t total trash.

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20 Horror Movies That Roger Ebert Actually Liked

I t's no secret at all that horror is the genre that gets the worst rap of all. Regardless of its popularity, critics and some viewers look down on it as a shameful form of art that doesn't deserve much attention because of its constant use of formulas and its narrative format that's based on supposedly banal elements that can't be taken seriously. In recent years, "good" horror has been remodeled as "elevated" horror , a curious way to say that liking horror is no longer embarrassing. And that is looked down upon by true fans of the genre.

Roger Ebert , the most important film critic of all time, is no stranger to this conversation. In fact, during his run as a critic for The Chicago Sun-Times and on the TV shows he hosted, he was very vocal about horror films and what they represented. He didn't exactly love the genre, and his appreciation for it is very scarce. He famously derided slasher films, and horror sequels weren't even featured in the books listing his reviews. Luckily, there's proof of those he actually liked, and for your leisure, we've compiled a fine list of the horror films Ebert liked and, in some cases, loved.

The following list may contain minor spoilers.

The Shining (1980)

The shining.

Release Date May 23, 1980

Director Stanley Kubrick

Cast Philip Stone, Barry Nelson, Scatman Crothers, Danny Lloyd, Shelley Duvall, Jack Nicholson

Main Genre Horror

Runtime 146

Roger's Rating - 4/4 Stars

Stanley Kubrick's horror classic, The Shining , is loosely based on Stephen King's novel of the same name. In the story, Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance are a family who accept a job offer made to Jack, in which he must take care of The Overlook Hotel during the winter season. Jack will use his spare time to finish his book , but quickly things take a darker turn. Ghosts lurk in the hallways, but they're nothing compared to Jack's deteriorated state of mind. The isolation will prove to be too much for the household leader, who will eventually give in to the demands of his demons and those who live inside the Overlook.

Alongside other Kubrick joints, Ebert put The Shining in his Great Movies series. He entices us to see beyond the simplicity of the genre and ask ourselves the important questions about the reliability of the observer, and that's a very sharp observation. Who are we supposed to believe in the film? Is Danny as reliable as Jack? Is the hotel really haunted? Or is everything a product of Jack's disturbed mind?

Per Ebert's review : "At some level, it is necessary for us to believe the three members of the Torrance family are actually residents in the hotel during that winter, whatever happens or whatever they think happens. Those who have read Stephen King's original novel report that Kubrick dumped many plot elements and adapted the rest to his uses. Kubrick is telling a story with ghosts (the two girls, the former caretaker, and a bartender), but it isn't a "ghost story," because the ghosts may not be present in any sense at all except as visions experienced by Jack or Danny." You can rent The Shining on Prime Video.

Lucky McKee's extremely underrated film, May , tells the story of May Canady, a veterinary assistant who's socially awkward. Since her childhood, May has been disturbed by people noticing her lazy eye. She only seems to be able to speak with her doll Suzie, and when she meets a dreamy guy, she can't even bring herself to spew out a few words. A very uncomfortable encounter breaks any chance of them taking it further, but May continues trying to meet people, which sends her deeper into a spiral of violence and paranoia that ultimately flows into a conclusion where the truth is bent towards May's destroyed state of mind.

Ebert loved May when it was released. He indicated Angela Bettis' performance of the title character is key to understanding the psychology of the film and the direction of what McKee is trying to transmit with his version of logic, heavily twisted for the sake of the film's true meaning. It was a very bizarre case of an indie horror film, perhaps the most obscure one on this list, that truly grabbed his attention.

He says, "The movie subtly darkens its tone until, when the horrifying ending arrives, we can see how we got there. There is a final shot that would get laughs in another kind of film, but May

earns the right to it, and it works, and we understand it. There are so many bad horror movies. A good one is incredibly hard to make. It has to feel a fundamental sympathy for its monster, as movies as different as Frankenstein , Carrie , and The Silence of the Lambs did. It has to see that they suffer, too. The crimes of too many horror monsters seem to be for their own entertainment, or ours. In the best horror movies, the crimes are inescapable, and the monsters are driven toward them by the merciless urgency of their natures." You can stream May on Tubi.

The Blair Witch Project (1999)

Blair witch project.

Release Date July 14, 1999

Director Eduardo Snchez, Daniel Myrick

Cast Sandra Snchez, Jim King, Bob Griffith, Michael C. Williams, Heather Donahue, Joshua Leonard

In Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick's The Blair Witch Project , audiences are treated to a horrific situation. Three students have vanished in the forest after going deep inside the woods for the filming of a documentary about a local legend. Heather, Michael, and Joshua disappeared without leaving any clues, and a year later, their footage was found. One that has been cut together to depict their last moments on this earth. By far, the greatest found footage horror film ever made.

The Blair Witch Project is a horror statement from 1999, the year when everything changed. Even movie marketing had to rearrange itself as the internet took on a huge role in promoting films. Roger Ebert seemed to take a dive into the cinéma vérité phenomenon, and he bought into the film's theme and its effect.

In his review , he called it "an extraordinarily effective horror film." He also stated the following: "At a time when digital techniques can show us almost anything, "The Blair Witch Project" is a reminder that what really scares us is the stuff we can't see. The noise in the dark is almost always scarier than what makes the noise in the dark. Any kid can tell you that. Not that he believes it at the time." You can stream The Blair Witch Project on Freevee.

Related: 20 Horror Films That Bent the Rules and Became Iconic Because of It

Body Snatchers (1993)

Abel Ferrara's Body Snatchers was a modern reimagining of Jack Finney's novel that had been adapted before in 1956 and 1978 , respectively. In the film, Marti, the daughter of an EPA agent, experiences strange events while living with her dad, her brother, and her stepmother on a military base. People begin to behave erratically and with no emotion, and Marti and her boyfriend discover this may be an alien invasion taking place very slowly.

While the film wasn't a massive hit like Warner hoped for, the presence of Ferrara in a whole new genre seemed to work. Body Snatchers is a very effective horror sci-fi film with fantastic special effects, good performances, and a very eerie depiction of the premise.

Ebert was more than kind with his four-star review of the film: "There are scenes of genuine terror. One shot in particular, involving a helicopter, is as scary as anything in The Exorcist or Silence of the Lambs . And the fright is generated, not by the tired old slasher trick of having someone jump out of the screen, but by the careful establishing of situations in which we fear, and then our fears are confirmed." Now, that's a good comparison. You can rent Body Snatchers on Prime Video.

Psycho (1960)

Release Date June 22, 1960

Director Alfred Hitchcock

Cast Simon Oakland, John McIntire, John Gavin, Martin Balsam, Anthony Perkins, Vera Miles

Runtime 109

Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho is the story of Marion Crane, a woman who decides to take a leap of faith, steals a lot of money, and makes a run for it. Marion gets on the road, but during a rainstorm, she's forced to pull over at the Bates Motel. There are rooms available, and she strikes up a connection with Norman, the hotel manager, who lives with his mother on the premises. When Marion decides to take a shower, someone enters her room and succeeds in bringing to life the most important horror twist of all time.

Psycho is a horror classic that completely changed the genre when it was released in 1960, under Hitchcock's terms. Its legacy is unquestionable , and critics regard it as the film that introduced the slasher figure in cinema history. Ebert wasn't exactly a detractor, exclaiming how effective it is and putting it in his list of Great Movies: "What makes Psycho immortal, when so many films are already half-forgotten as we leave the theater, is that it connects directly with our fears: Our fears that we might impulsively commit a crime, our fears of the police, our fears of becoming the victim of a madman, and of course our fears of disappointing our mothers." You can rent Psycho on Apple TV.

Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Dawn of the dead.

Release Date September 2, 1978

Director George A. Romero

Cast David Early, David Crawford, Gaylen Ross, Scott H. Reiniger, David Emge, Ken Foree

Runtime 126

Dawn of the Dead is George A. Romero's continuation of his zombie saga that puts zombies in full color and in a shopping mall, where survivors of the apocalypse have decided to take shelter. Whatever's left of their consciousness drives the zombies to the mall in a fascinating statement about consumerism and capitalism in an era where social commentary was rare in movies, and in horror, it was just atypical. Needless to say, it's one of the best zombie films ever made.

Not only that, but Ebert called Dawn of the Dead one of the best horror films ever made. In a bizarre statement from the critic, he said the following: "But, even so, you may be asking, how can I defend this depraved trash? I do not defend it. I praise it. And it is not depraved, although some reviews have seen it that way. It is about depravity." He accompanied this glowing consideration for Romero's film with constant warnings about the film's graphic violence. All we can say is "not bad at all, Romero." You can rent Dawn of the Dead on Prime Video.

The Exorcist (1973)

The exorcist.

Release Date December 26, 1973

Director William Friedkin

Cast Lee J. Cobb, Max Von Sydow, Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn

Runtime 2hr 2min

William Friedkin's The Exorcist takes us on a journey where Chris MacNeil, a Hollywood actress living with her daughter in Georgetown, begins experiencing strange phenomena. Regan exhibits unusual behavior, which forces Chris to seek help from doctors, who eventually decide to make an uncanny recommendation: what about an exorcism? Chris convinces Father Karras to pay her a visit, and he bears witness to the Devil himself, trapped inside Regan's body. With the help of Father Merrin, he will try to force the entity out of the child before causing any further damage.

In the '70s, The Exorcist became an extremely important piece of art . The film changed the rules of horror, and it's still regarded as the greatest horror film ever made, both by audiences and critics.

Don't let anyone tell you it's not a horror film, but if you feel doubtful, here's Ebert's statement about it: "We don’t necessarily believe them ourselves, but that hardly matters during the film’s two hours. If movies are, among other things, opportunities for escapism, then The Exorcist is one of the most powerful ever made. Our objections, and our questions, occur in an intellectual context after the movie has ended. During the movie, there are no reservations, but only experiences. We feel shock, horror, nausea, fear, and some small measure of dogged hope." You can stream The Exorcist on Max.

The Possession (2012)

The possession.

Release Date August 30, 2012

Director Ole Bornedal

Cast Jay Brazeau, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Madison Davenport, Natasha Calis, Matisyahu, Kyra Sedgwick

Rating PG-13

Roger's Rating - 3.5/4 Stars

Based on an article published in the Los Angeles Times in 2004, The Possession is the story of the Breneks as they decide to part ways, and Clyde's daughters end up spending a lot of time with him. He tries to cover their every need, and this includes buying Em a strange box she sees at a yard sale. The problem is that it seems too impossible to open, but after trying, she's able to do it. This is how they release an evil spirit that ends up possessing the girl, a dybbuk who will stop at nothing before completing its goal.

The Possession , a solid demonic possession film , is the strange case of an average horror film that managed to cause great effect on the critic by basically being authentic and portraying well-built characters. After you check out his review, you will be convinced to revisit this very underrated horror film. It was actually one of the last horror films he praised before his passing. In his review, he states, "the scene where he goes mano a mano with the dybbuk will remind lots of people of Max von Sydow's face-to-face with a demon in The Exorcist . Comparisons can be made with Linda Blair's suffering in that film, and Natasha Calis' tortured performance here. Fair enough. The Exorcist has influenced a lot of films, and this is one of the better ones." You can rent The Possession on Prime Video.

Paranormal Activity (2005)

Paranormal activity.

Release Date October 16, 2009

Director Oren Peli

Cast Amber Armstrong, Ashley Palmer, Micah Sloat, Mark Fredrichs, Katie Featherston

Runtime 1hr 26min

Oren Peli's Paranormal Activity is the found footage horror film that depicts the last days in the lives of Katie and Micah, a young couple who have moved into a new house in California. Katie begins feeling she's being haunted by an unseen spirit, and Micah installs cameras and uses handheld devices to record any evidence of the violent ghost. But as the footage will prove, the evil entity is much "closer to home" than he thinks.

The film was a groundbreaking event in independent cinema, and it's perhaps the most important independent film ever made. It's, without a doubt, a very scary film, a fact that Roger Ebert was sure to include in his very glowing review of the film : "I learn from IMDb that Paranormal Activity does indeed have a writer-director, Oren Peli, and other technical credits.

But like The Blair Witch Project , with which it's routinely compared, it goes to great lengths to seem like a film found after the event. It works. It illustrates one of my favorite points, that silence and waiting can be more entertaining than frantic fast-cutting and berserk F/X. For extended periods here, nothing at all is happening, and believe me, you won't be bored." You can stream Paranormal Activity on Max.

Related: The Only Horror Franchises to Make More Than $1 Billion at the Box Office

Orphan (2009)

Release Date July 24, 2009

Director Jaume Collet-Serra

Cast Jimmy Bennett, Peter Sarsgaard, CCH Pounder, Vera Farmiga, Margo Martindale, Isabelle Fuhrman

Main Genre Mystery

Runtime 105

In Orphan , Kate and Coleman are having a rough time after their last pregnancy didn't have a good result. Still, they decide to incorporate a new member into the family: Esther, a Russian-born girl who seems very ideal. At first, it's all perfect, but then Daniel, one of Kate and John's children, starts noticing strange things about Esther. Violent stuff starts to happen, and Kate decides to see where Esther comes from. To her surprise, she isn't the 9-year-old she says she is.

Cleverly written, very well-acted, and powerfully executed by Spanish director Jaume Collet-Serra, Orphan is a thrilling and very violent horror film with a chilling premise that hasn't lost a single touch of authenticity. Ebert was very vocal about this supposedly true story being so effective, but warned against its display of violence: "The climax is rather startling, combining the logic of the situation with audacity in exploiting its terror. Yet you have to hand it to Orphan . You want a good horror film about a child from hell, you got one. Do not, under any circumstances, take children to see it. Take my word on this." You can stream Orphan on Max.

Blade II (2002)

Roger's rating - 3.5/4.

Blade II , Guillermo del Toro's continuation of the Blade franchise, puts the title character in a whole new battle. The vigilante, who can defend humans against vampires, is forced to join an elite group of bloodsuckers in order to defend humans and vampires against a new breed of mutant creatures of night, who have the power to exterminate every living being on Earth. This is one of the best horror sequels you've never seen.

Blade is, without a doubt, a very interesting franchise. When it comes to superhero horror films , it just works, and Blade II is great proof. Del Toro makes sure to add his own ingredients to the formula and makes the film a big jump ahead of its predecessor. With Dawn of the Dead, it's the only horror sequel to appear on the list.

Per Ebert's review where he praises del Toro: "Still in his 30s, the Mexican-born director doesn't depend on computers to get him through a movie and impress the kids with fancy fight scenes. He brings his creepy phobias along with him. You can sense the difference between a movie that's a technical exercise ( Resident Evil ) and one steamed in the dread cauldrons of the filmmaker's imagination." You can rent Blade II on Prime Video.

Jaws (1975)

Release Date June 18, 1975

Director Steven Spielberg

Cast Carl Gottlieb, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton, Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss

Main Genre Adventure

Runtime 124

In Jaws , Amity Island is under the threat of an underwater monster that no one understands. Chief Brody tries to keep beaches closed after body remains show up on the shore, but the town's mayor disagrees. A child dies, and things change. Brody, with an oceanographer by the name of Hooper and a shark hunter named Quint, decides to go on a hunt for the largest predator he will ever face. And just like he says while chumming the water, they're going to need a bigger boat.

Spielberg's Jaws was the first blockbuster film to ever be released, and Ebert wasn't foreign to the phenomenon. He saw it as confirmation of what summer movies meant from then on. Eventually, he put it in the Great Movies series.

In his review, he says the following: "Spielberg's first big hit contained elements he repeated in many of his movies. A night sea hunt for the shark provides an early example of his favorite visual hallmark, a beam of light made visible by fog. He would continue to devote close attention to characters, instead of hurrying past them to the special effects, as so many 1990s f/x directors did. In Jaws and subsequently, he prefers mood to emotional bludgeoning, and one of the remarkable things about the picture is its relatively muted tone." You can rent Jaws on Prime Video.

Anaconda (1997)

1997's Anaconda takes audiences to the Amazon Rainforest as a film crew goes deep inside the jungle in order to shoot a documentary about an Amazonian tribe that wishes to remain undiscovered. However, the threat comes in the form of a menacing monster lurking underwater and in the foliage of a very hostile environment. Terri Flores, the director, leads the group in the survival against a green anaconda, which is also being hunted by an experimented snake hunter.

Anaconda is probably the most "absurd" film on the list. It's not a high-profile monster film, and it has everything a creature feature must comply with in order to follow B-movie standards. Nevertheless, Roger seemed to love it, and in his review, he speaks out loud about the value of the film: "A movie like Anaconda can easily be dumb and goofy (see Piranha ). Much depends on the skill of the filmmakers. Here one of the key players is the cinematographer, Bill Butler, who creates a seductive yet somehow sinister jungle atmosphere. The movie looks great, and the visuals and the convincing soundtrack and ominous music make the Amazon into a place with presence and personality: It's not a backdrop, it's an enveloping presence." You can stream Anaconda on Netflix.

Mimic (1997)

Release Date August 22, 1997

Director Guillermo del Toro

Cast Charles S. Dutton, Josh Brolin, Giancarlo Giannini, Alexander Goodwin, Jeremy Northam, Mira Sorvino

Guillermo del Toro's Mimic tells the story of entomologist Dr. Susan Tyler, who creates an insect that she believes will save lives. In New York City, cockroaches are responsible for spreading a lethal disease that's claimed the lives of dozens of children. Tyler breeds an insect that causes the cockroaches to die, and the city celebrates her scientific discovery. The problem is that the insect evolves to the point of reaching a huge size and acquires the ability to mimic other organisms.

Ebert loved '90s Guillermo del Toro. There's no way around that. Mimic is a very underrated film that had a good box-office return , but not even its director was happy with the final result, as he believed it was massacred in the editing room.

Fortunately, Ebert had more to say about it: There are expected payoffs, yes, and the usual scenes where a false shock is followed by a real one. Mimic is a loyal occupant of its genre. But Del Toro is a director with a genuine visual sense, with a way of drawing us into his story and evoking the mood with the very look and texture of his shots. He takes the standard ingredients and presents them so effectively that Mimic makes the old seem new, fresh and scary." You can stream Mimic on PlutoTV.

Altered States (1980)

Ken Russell's Altered States tells the story of Edward Jessup, a psychopathologist who wishes to shed some light on the mystery of schizophrenia. He uses sensory deprivation tanks for his experiments and, at some point, goes as far as to include substances to cause hallucinatory states. He realizes he's gone too far in his experiments when strange things begin to happen. From the materialization of organisms only present in Jessup's mind to the physical devolution.

The last film Paddy Chayefsky ever wrote is an insanely underrated horror feature with state-of-the-art special effects and the film debut of John Hurt and Drew Barrymore. Altered States is a great example of body horror based on an interesting premise.

Roger Ebert liked it enough to give it a solid rating back in the early '80s: " Altered States is a superbly silly movie, a magnificent entertainment, and a clever and brilliant machine for making us feel awe, fear, and humor. That is enough. It's pure movie and very little meaning. Did I like it? Yeah, I guess I did, but I wouldn't advise trying to think about it very deeply." You can stream Altered States on The Criterion Channel.

Carrie (1976)

Release Date November 16, 1976

Director Brian De Palma

Cast William Katt, Amy Irving, Piper Laurie, Sissy Spacek, John Travolta

Runtime 1hr 38min

Brian De Palma's version of Stephen King's first novel, Carrie , is the story of poor Carrie White, a teenager who's suffering from constant bullying and the extreme views of her religious mother. What they don't know is that Carrie has telekinetic abilities, and while she doesn't have enough malice to use them against her peers, a prank during prom will awaken the real Carrie, one who will bring down Hell on earth, and nothing will stop her.

Ebert was quick to observe De Palma's growth in his display of this religious horror icon . He observes the importance of Carrie as a character built on something tangible, not a theory of horror that was created to create shock.

In his review, he states the following: "Well, what makes the movie's last twenty minutes so riveting is that they grow so relentlessly, so inevitably, out of what's gone before. This isn't a science-fiction movie with a tacked-on crisis, but the study of a character we know and understand.

When she fully uses (or is used by) her strange power, we know why. This sort of narrative development hasn't exactly been De Palma's strong point, but here he exhibits a gift for painting personalities; we didn't know De Palma, ordinarily so flashy on the surface, could go so deep. Part of his success is a result of the very good performances by Sissy Spacek, as Carrie, and by Piper Laurie, as Carrie's mother. They form a closed-off, claustrophobic household, the mother has translated her own psychotic fear of sexuality into a twisted personal religion." You can stream Carrie on Max.

Related: 15 Actors Whose Best Performance Is in a Horror Movie

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The last house on the left.

Release Date August 30, 1972

Director Wes Craven

Cast Marc Sheffler, Jeramie Rain, Fred J. Lincoln, David Hess, Lucy Grantham, Sandra Peabody

The Last House on the Left by Wes Craven depicts the ordeal that teenagers Mari and Phyllis go through after sadistic criminals interrupt their trip to a concert. It is based on Ingmar Bergman's Swedish film The Virgin Spring. The girls are tortured and eventually killed, but what the killers don't notice is that right after they arrive at the doorstep of Mari's parents, When they realize these people may be responsible for their daughter's death, they go on a rampage of absolute revenge.

Roger observes the true nature of the very controversial The Last House on the Left . He speaks highly of the experience, but he also makes sure his readers understand what kind of film this is—one that perhaps you have to see, but just once in your life.

In his review , he also puts Craven in the spotlight as a natural horror storyteller: "Wes Craven's direction never lets us out from under almost unbearable dramatic tension (except in some silly scenes involving a couple of dumb cops, who overact and seriously affect the plot's credibility). The acting is unmannered and natural, I guess. There's no posturing. There's a good ear for dialogue and nuance. And there is evil in this movie. Not bloody escapism, or a thrill a minute, but a fully developed sense of the vicious natures of the killers. There is no glory in this violence. And Craven has written in a young member of the gang (again borrowed on Bergman's story) who sees the horror as fully as the victims do." You can stream The Last House on the Left on Prime Video.

Play Misty for Me (1971)

Clint Eastwood's feature directorial debut, Play Misty for Me , stars him as Dave Garver, a radio DJ who, after a broadcast, goes to a bar to let out some steam. There he meets Evelyn Draper, a woman who admits she's a fan and who compels Garver enough to drive her home. It doesn't stop there, as Garver sleeps with her, unaware of what it may represent for Evelyn. Shortly after, she begins exhibiting obsessive behavior. If you know this film and Draper's character, you may be aware that this is an understatement.

Play Misty for Me shot Eastwood into stardom as a capable filmmaker . Jessica Walter, who plays Draper, was actually nominated for a Golden Globe for her role. In Ebert's review, he mentions how the film naturally affects the viewer with an experience in which, very slowly, we become aware that there aren't limits to what Draper can do in order to achieve her goal: "And so the movie, by refusing to release any emotion at all until the very end, absolutely wrings us dry. There is no purpose to a suspense thriller, I suppose, except to involve us, scare us, to give us moments of vicarious terror. "Play Misty for Me" does that with an almost cruel efficiency." You can rent Play Misty for Me on Netflix.

Night of the Living Dead (1968)

Night of the living dead.

Release Date October 4, 1968

Cast Judith Ridley, Keith Wayne, Marilyn Eastman, Karl Hardman, Judith O'Dea, Duane Jones

Night of the Living Dead by George A. Romero puts audiences in the middle of a zombie invasion when there were simply none of those. The first zombie film takes place in a remote house, where survivors are trying to protect themselves from the flesh-eating creatures that are surrounding their haven. However, the undead aren't actually their only threat, as the tension between them proves to be too high, and eventually, they're no longer safe inside.

In 1968, things changed in cinema, and Night of the Living Dead was one of the reasons . The film's importance lies in its being the basis for the future of a culture that never fizzled out and which served as a backdrop for commentary, regardless of detractors and their pointless hatred.

Ebert was kind enough to see the value in Romero's feature: "I supposed the idea was to make a fast buck before movies like this are off-limits to children. Maybe that's why Night of the Living Dead was scheduled for the lucrative holiday season, when the kids are on vacation. Maybe that's it, but I don't know how I could explain it to the kids who left the theater with tears in their eyes." You can stream Night of the Living Dead on Shudder.

The Vanishing (1988)

Release Date October 27, 1988

Director George Sluizer

Cast Gene Bervoets, Bernard-Pierre Donnadieu

Main Genre Thriller

Runtime 107 min

George Sluizer's The Vanishing , also known as Spoorloos in its original language, tells the story of Rex and Saskia, a young couple on a road trip in France. While at a rest stop, Saskia goes missing. She's nowhere to be seen, and this is how Rex's desperate journey to find her begins. Years go by and there is still no trace, but then the abductor contacts Rex, promising to give some answers. This is the best and most nihilistic thriller you've never seen.

The film is a great approach to the genre that's filled with all the dread and lack of hope you would expect. But it's mostly because of where the story leads and the inevitable that eventually takes place, where all the truths are revealed.

Ebert's remarks were more than kind: " The Vanishing is a thriller, but in a different way than most thrillers. It is a thriller about knowledge - about what the characters know about the disappearance, and what they know about themselves. The movie was directed by George Sluizer, based on a screenplay he did with Tim Krabbe, which in turn was based on Krabbe's novel The Golden Egg. Together they have constructed a psychological jigsaw puzzle, a plot that makes you realize how simplistic many suspense films really are. The movie advances in a tantalizing fashion, supplying information obliquely, suggesting as much as it tells, and everything leads up to a climax that is as horrifying as it is probably inevitable." You can stream The Vanishing on The Criterion Channel.

To keep celebrating the greatest film critic there ever was, let's take a look at a video with Roger's favorite movies of all time:

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1978, Mystery & thriller/Horror, 1h 57m

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Critics Consensus

Jaws 2 never approaches the lingering thrills of its classic predecessor, but it's reasonably entertaining for a sequel that has no reason to exist. Read critic reviews

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Jaws 2 videos, jaws 2   photos.

Years after the shark attacks that left Amity Island reeling, Sheriff Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) finds new trouble lurking in the waters. Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) wants to rid the beach town of the stain on its reputation. But the disappearance of a pair of divers suggests that all is not right. When Sheriff Brody voices his warnings about holding a sailing competition, everyone thinks it's post-traumatic stress. That is, until a shark fin cuts through the water.

Genre: Mystery & thriller, Horror, Adventure

Original Language: English

Director: Jeannot Szwarc

Producer: Richard D. Zanuck , David Brown

Writer: Carl Gottlieb , Howard Sackler

Release Date (Streaming): Feb 12, 2014

Runtime: 1h 57m

Production Co: Universal Pictures

Cast & Crew

Roy Scheider

Martin Brody

Lorraine Gary

Ellen Brody

Murray Hamilton

Larry Vaughn

Joseph Mascolo

Len Peterson

Jeffrey Kramer

Jeff Hendricks

Collin Wilcox Paxton

Dr. Lureen Elkins

Ann Dusenberry

Tina Wilcox

Mark Gruner

Tom Andrews

Susan French

Grace Witherspoon

Gary Springer

Andy Nicholas

Donna Wilkes

Jackie Peters

Eddie Marchand

John Dukakis

Paul "Polo" Loman

David Elliott

Larry Vaughn, Jr.

Billy Van Zandt

Jeannot Szwarc

Richard D. Zanuck

David Brown

Carl Gottlieb

Screenwriter

Howard Sackler

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In news that probably will not shock anyone, “The Meg,” the long-gestating screen adaptation of Steve Alten ’s best-selling novel, comes nowhere close to equalling the genius of Steven Spielberg ’s “ Jaws ”—considering that that film is one of the few truly perfect works conjured up in the history of American cinema. It is not even on a par with “ The Shallows ,” the ingenious 2016 Blake Lively thriller that is probably the best of all the post-“Jaws” shark-based entertainments to come along in the ensuing decades. When all is said and done, it is little more than a cheesy thriller in which a jumbo-sized shark wreaks havoc on the cast until Jason Statham arrives to save the day—the only real question being whether Statham will actually punch the creature into oblivion or not. (“Sharkpuncher”—that does have a ring to it.) The good news is that it at least is perfectly aware of what it's supposed to be doing—supplying viewers with enough aquatic carnage (though not enough to threaten the PG-13 rating) to painlessly pass a couple of hours in the multiplex during the dog days of August—and manages to accomplish that modest goal with minimum fuss. The end result may be little more than an exponentially more expensive version of those cheapo Syfy channel movies, but at least it has the good taste to be exponentially better as well.

Statham plays Jonas Taylor, the world’s best deep-sea rescue diver. Well, he  was  the world’s best until a rescue attempt in the Philippines went sour, and his claims that the ship was attacked by a mysterious unseen creature are dismissed as pressure-induced psychosis and cause him to lose everything. Five years later, he is on an unending bender in Thailand when he is visited by an old colleague, inevitably named Mac ( Cliff Curtis ) and, Mac’s new boss, Zhang ( Winston Chao ), who is the head of an underwater research facility outside of Shanghai that is looking into the possibility of a previously undetected undersea realm beneath the floor of the Marianas Trench. While exploring this new world, the sub containing three members of the research team, one of whom just happens to be Jonas’s ex-wife ( Jessica McNamee ) is hit by something and leaves them crippled and with a rescue window of about 18 hours. Would Jonas perhaps consider taking advantage of the opportunity to save his ex, confront his fears and prove that he wasn’t crazy after all?

In a shocking turn of events, Jonas agrees and is taken out to the facility, where he is introduced to the highly selected group of walking cliches that include Rainn Wilson as the egomaniacal billionaire who is funding the whole thing, Ruby Rose as the edgy tech genius who is, perhaps inevitably, named Jaxx, Page Kennedy as the wacky African-American who doesn’t know how to swim and didn’t sign up for this, and Bingbing Li as Suyin, who is Zhang’s daughter and who supplies the film with a precocious eight-year-old daughter ( Shuya Sophia Cai ), a potential romantic interest for Jonas and, perhaps most importantly, box-office interest from the increasingly important Chinese audience. (There are also a lot of additional people who mysteriously appear when needed and then vanish when they are not.) Anyway, during the rescue attempt, the creature attacks again and proves to be no less than a megalodon, a deadly shark about 70 feet long that had been assumed to be extinct. Before Jonas can say “I told you so” to everyone within earshot, it is discovered that the beast has managed to escape from the depths where it had been contained and has reached open water. Now he and the others must figure out a way to bring the megalodon down before it can use a crowded nearby beach as its reentry point to the top of the food chain.

“The Meg” (whose story, from what I understand, is quite different from the original novel) may not be the most ferociously original film ever made—to be fair, though, with a tale involving drunken divers, ex-wives, goofy money men and a shark most people do not believe exists, there are times when it feels less like a “Jaws” knockoff and more like a bizarre riff on “ The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou .” The emphasis here is more on goofy action thrills than on gut-crunching scares and in that regards, it was a good idea to give the directorial reins to Jon Turteltaub , whose name may not symbolize horror filmmaking (depending on your personal stance towards “ While You Were Sleeping ,” of course) but whose “ National Treasure ” films also told stories that started off being completely preposterous and then got progressively sillier as they went on. Here, he clearly went into the project knowing that he was never going to top “Jaws” in terms of thrills and instead takes a lighter, sillier approach—well, as light and silly as can be with a film in which people are eaten by sharks. The screenplay is filled with cliches but at least they have been deployed with a certain amount of wit and style this time around, and there are even a couple of moments in which he uses the audience’s presumptions to make for some real surprises.

Serving as the center of all the surrounding silliness is Statham and while it may not necessarily sound like a compliment, he is actually the perfect person for a film like this. He has the straightforward heroic demeanor down pat while also possessing a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor that is a nice complement to the surrounding nonsense. 

“The Meg” is no masterpiece by any means—the inevitable attack on swarms of innocent swimmers feels oddly truncated and the climactic battle is not nearly as exciting as some of the earlier action beats. However, it manages to hit upon a reasonably effective blend of action and humor that never sinks to the strained depths of the “Sharknado” saga and similar films that have emerged since the technology was developed to bring poorly rendered CGI sharks to the masses (and, truth be told, I also vastly prefer it to that “ Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom ” gibberish). And when "The Meg" finally arrives at its most overt “Jaws” reference, the film proves to be more clever and amusing than one might ordinarily expect under the circumstances. Who could ask for anything more—except for more sharkpunching, of course.

Peter Sobczynski

A moderately insightful critic, full-on Swiftie and all-around  bon vivant , Peter Sobczynski, in addition to his work at this site, is also a contributor to The Spool and can be heard weekly discussing new Blu-Ray releases on the Movie Madness podcast on the Now Playing network.

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The Meg (2018)

Rated PG-13 for action/peril, bloody images and some language.

113 minutes

Jason Statham as Jonas Taylor

Ruby Rose as Jaxx

Jessica McNamee as Celeste

Robert Taylor as Dr. Heller

Rainn Wilson as Jack Morris

Li Bingbing as Suyin

Cliff Curtis as James 'Mac' Mackreides

Masi Oka as Toshi

• Jon Turteltaub

Writer (based on the novel "Meg" by)

• Steve Alten
• Dean Georgaris
• Erich Hoeber

Cinematographer

• Steven Kemper
• Kelly Matsumoto
• Harry Gregson-Williams

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