HOW JAWS INSPIRED THE HORROR MIND OF MIDNIGHT MASS CREATOR
The legacy of Jaws isn't just about the continuing love of the film, it also keeps on inspiring creatives and Jaws fans alike to this day.
That's evident with the ongoing roaring success of The Shark Is Broken in London's West End and also in the people in the film and TV industry who it inspired, who are now at the top their game in their chosen field.
And one of those is horror writer and director Mick Flanagan, who gave us the likes of the sublime The Haunting of Hill House, The Haunting of Bly Manor (complete with a character called Quint no less), Stephen King's Doctor Sleep and his latest, Midnight Mass.
Speaking to Deadline about the film that lit his fuse, Flanagan says that he has easily watched the Steven Spielberg shark classic over 200 times.
And it is a love that started early as he vividly remembers his fifth birthday party when he was going to have some friends over to watch Jaws.
Jaws fan and director Mick Flanagan with Ewan McGregor on the set of Dr Sleep
He said: "I liked it because the movie was so fun, so scary, it was so exciting. There were still parts of the movie I wouldn't watch.
"I would cover my eyes and hide during the Ben Gardner boat sequence and when Brody is chumming the water."
The fascination with the fast fish continued, as in 6th grade he and his friends put on a play of Jaws on his porch, complete with cardboard shark fin and head. This was Flanagan's first time directing anything.
He goes onto explain how Jaws made home fall in love with every aspect of filmmaking.
Flanagan said: "I began to fall in love with filmmaking by noticing each department at work in Jaws. I would watch it and be studying the composition and the cinematography, and was the first time that lightbulb went off and I even understood what those things were."
He grew up, absorbing Jaws on any medium he could, whether it was a recording from TV, VHS, widescreen VHS, laser disc, DVD and Blu-ray...all before he finally got to see it on the big screen.
He added: "You can kind of break Jaws into all these pieces and all of them I can point at and say that's why I fell in love with this. I fell in love with monologues because of Quint, I fell in love with monologues because of Shaw's Indianapolis monologue.
" I fell in love with implied horror elements and suspense, because they didn't show the shark for so long...I honestly can't think of something else that has infiltrated so much of what I think of, as far as the roots of what filmmaking is all about."
Although, Jaws could have led the acclaimed horror writer and director down a different career path, he originally wanted to be a marine biologist, just like Matt Hooper.
He said: "When I would study real sharks, I was always surprised and disappointed that they didn't look like Bruce."
A newly restored Bruce now lives at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures
Next up for Flanagan? He's sticking with horror, and Netflix, with a new retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's The Fall Of The House Of Usher. All of which means more sleepless nights for us.
But fear not, that could mean you get to burn some calories whilst you are being scared: WATCHING JAWS BURNS CALORIES
Words by Dean Newman
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