Stay Out Of The Water: Why Jaws Is A Horror Movie
Is Jaws a horror film? Yes, it is.
Steven Spielberg’s shark classic from 1975 may not be horror in the sense of say your A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) or The Exorcist (1973), but any film that can scare people out of the water upon release, make them jump out of their seats on numerous occasions and continue to drive our fear of sharks and the water some 50 years later…how can it be anything else?
If one of the markers of a horror film is that it is scary, then horror by any other name, is definitely Jaws, To quote Matt Hooper, those proportions are correct. Don’t agree? Bite me.
Jaws, which overtook The Exorcist as the then highest grossing film of all time, was, like William Friedkin’s film – and the book that preceded it – was something of a cultural phenomenon.
Jaws also did for the sea what Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (1960) did for showers, the opening attack on Chrissie Watkins having something of a cinematic kinship with that Marion Crane scene. Both are iconic, make full use of their amazing and memorable scores, and create a lasting impact for as much as what they don’t show as what they do. Both retain their power to instil fear and dread, to this day.
And it just isn’t that opening scene that stands up – and still scares and makes you jump to this day. Jaws is full to the chum bucket brim full of such moments.
We’ve already mentioned the demise of Chrissie Watkins, but there’s also the death of Alex Kintner (Spielberg kills Pipit the dog and a child in minutes of one another some 15 minutes into the film).
Speaking to Deadline, creator, writer and director of Midnight Mass, Mick Flanagan, said: "There are images, like the fisherman (estuary victim) who is with Mike in the pond, when he's holding onto the side of the boat, and you see the shark rolled on its side...that to me will always be the most realistic and frightening image of a shark."
There’s also the still unnerving pier sequence (you can’t watch it without raising your feet from the floor) and the estuary attack victim scene – which is kind of burnt on my retina and is pure nightmare fuel to this day.
Thinking back to when he first saw that attack in Jaws, for Eli Roth's History of Horror, Ryan Turek, VP of Feature Film Development at Blumhouse Productions, said: "I was shell-shocked... Jaws is unrelenting, he doesn't care who he eats. We're all doomed."
And of course, who could forget the continuing terror of the Ben Gardner head sequence, that still has people jumping in their seats each and every time. Plus, the bloody and screaming death of Quint (Robert Shaw) still lingers in the mind of many.
One their own and in isolation any one of these scenes would not make it a horror but add them together and their multiple effect is creating a prolonged sense of fear and dread each and every time the film dips its toe in the water. Particularly in the first half. And THAT music by John Williams, it’s practically primal in the way it induces fear.
Save for Quint’s death and the Hooper in the cage scene, we are talking more adventure yarn, but that only makes Quint’s death more jarring in a way, Spielberg (and Williams with his score) has lulled us into that sense of adventure.
If Alien (1979) – which after all was pitched as ‘Jaws in space’ – can be science-fiction/horror and Silence of the Lambs (1991) can be seen as horror/thriller then there is nothing to stop Jaws being classed as horror/adventure.
And there are those that say Jaws is nothing but a monster movie, you could also say that the aforementioned Alien and Silence of the Lambs also fit into that category, in very different ways. But weren’t the likes Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man and Creature From The Black Lagoon monsters too? And Universal ones to boot.
Sharks may be very real, but sharks the size of the one in Jaws – that’s a twenty-footer, twenty-five – are not, so again that fits into the grotesque exaggeration category of horror, think giants or more powerful beasts.
Jaws also fits very much into the fear of the unknown – and for the most part – the unseen. We know that the shark in Jaws was more shy on screen than perhaps he would have been, due to him not working as well as hoped in the salt water off Martha’s Vineyard.
That meant Spielberg, editor Verna Fields and composer John Williams had to suggest the shark, which resulted in just four minutes of screen time for the shark. It feels a lot more, and a lot more exhausting, and that Jaws legacy has meant a slow reveal in other horror movies and the use of point of view shots. Just look at Michael Myers in the original John Carpenter classic, Halloween.
Created by Mike D aka Worldbreaker13
Jaws also very much fits into the cycle of nature vs man as horror. If The Birds is the father of nature vs man horror, then Jaws is very much its cinematic offspring. Even Spielberg said he had to think, what would Hitchcock do? when the shark was not working.
And as horror director and Jaws fan states, such films are horror, because we are bottom of the food chain. He said: “(Jaws is) the ultimate animal attack story… (it’s a) landmark horror film.”
And shark monster movies – including the law of diminishing returns Jaws sequels – have practically become a sub-genre themselves. Even outside of shark films, Jaws has very much left its mark in films, with those doffing their cap taking some (or all) of the beats of Jaws to varying degrees of success, such as Crawl, Blood Beach and Tremors.
The beauty of the beast of Jaws is that it is many genres mixed, but to deny Jaws as being a horror film would be no better than Mayor Vaughn denying that there was a shark patrolling the beaches off Amity.
And although Jaws may not have been written or planned as a horror by Peter Benchley, Carl Gottlieb, Steven Spielberg and Universal, in the minds of many of the audience that is absolutely what it has become.
Love to prove that you say? We just did.
We also opened up the debate to Jaws fans, asking them if they felt Jaws should be classed as a horror film. They took to it like, well, sharks to water.
Bradley Bjornstad on Twitter said:
It’s a horror/thriller/adventure film. It plays on all genres perfectly. And sprinkles in action as well (not to mention some very comedic undertones). Spielberg can cast a very wide net with his films. Part of what makes this film a true masterpiece.
Very much so. It has all the elements you would expect to see in a horror film. I have no issue with calling Jaws a horror movie.
Tim Foley on Facebook said:
I do. A lot of people have disagreed with me, but I point out the cultural impact it has had in that you can’t go the beach without someone doing the Jaws theme if someone spots a shark or how every shark movie since has paid homage to Jaws.
It absolutely is, in my opinion. However, that's the beauty of the horror genre: it can overlap with just about any OTHER genre quite seamlessly. Action, adventure, fantasy, science fiction, romance, historical…
Absolutely! When I first saw it in 1975, this 9-year-old was terrified and scarred for life. And it made me love movies from that point on.
I think it is. It has scared a lot of people out of the water over the years. It also has action and thrills but I’d consider it a horror film. There are a few scenes that make me jump & Quint’s demise is pretty gruesome.
Words by Dean Newman
If you would like to contribute a guest blog, please visit our ‘work with us’ page
