The Scary Movie 'Rules' JAWS Follows, Created And Completely Ignores

I don’t like to really describe Jaws as a horror film as such, I’ve always felt it does it a bit of a disservice to set it down in one genre but when Halloween comes around I nearly always find myself watching it.

There’s no getting away from it, it’s a scary movie.

And when you look at other ‘Halloween Classics’, Jaws follows a lot of the ‘rules’ (thank you Wes Craven).

So, lets just say that Jaws is a horror movie, but what sort?

Creature Feature

Is it a ‘creature feature’? A werewolf movie or something like Dracula? Well, no, obviously not. This is not a story about a supernatural beastie, the shark doesn’t change shape or wear an opera cape or live in a castle.

It’s just a shark.

What does that leave then?

'Bruce' the shark from Steven Spielberg's classic thriller JAWS

The ‘Slasher’ Movie

You can look at Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees, Fred(die) Krueger, Norman Bates or any of the others, Bruce the shark is just the same.

He lies in wait, patrolling the murky depths just like the rest of them.

Now we come to reasons for the killing. Even though Hooper spells out that the fish is a simple soul (it swims, its eats and makes little sharks) there’s still something malevolent about it. It does somehow seem to be punishing Amity for something…

Great White shark recreates the JAWS poster (photograph by Euan Rannachan)

This is certainly the case with that other Halloween fave, Myers.

His reasons seem to be a good old fashioned combination of being ignored and some sort of sexual jealousy. And boy does he bare a grudge! So far there’ve been 13 of them. He’s stomped his way through various neighbourhoods, slicing and dicing since 1978 (three years after Jaws was released…)

It’s small town America again. White picket fences, creepy music and big jump scares. Also an out-of-left field hero who realises before anyone else what’s going on.

Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) being stalked by Michael Myers in John Carpenter's original Halloween (1978)

Jason Voorhees is another simple tale of a lad who turned (very, VERY) bad.

Friday the 13th takes place near water, there’s lots of yellow in it (sou’wester’s and canoes mostly) and Kevin Bacon’s there too - who of course went on to star in the excellent Jaws-inspired ‘Tremors’ (once he’s ‘kicked off his Sunday shoes’ and pre EE ads of course).

There’s more sex than in Jaws and the whole thing’s a lot nastier in tone but there’s still lots of the same themes. Implied retribution for past crimes, people not heading warnings, crazy old timers… It was made in response to Halloween but it’s another land-based Jaws where Bruce is switched for a human. There is also the ‘parental problem’ with the series that rears its head further on in the list.

The 80s were in full swing when Freddy Krueger turned up. A Nightmare on Elm Street was horror for the MTV generation. Written and directed by Wes Craven, it’s a low budget, freaky trip through the subconscious. For anyone who doesn’t know, Krueger was a snaggle-toothed child killer who got burned alive by local parents - vigilante justice is never a good start in a horror movie. He came back of course, but this time in the dreams of the children. Leering out from the shadows with his weapon being even more like Bruce’s teeth. His knife glove was almost a part of him.

The sequels dumbed the character down a lot (especially when you’ve trudged past Part III) and he was turned into a jokey panto villain who even had some God-awful rap record out, if memory serves. But that first film is a real shocker. It’s very Jaws-like - there’s nowhere to hide from him. He just waited for you to fell asleep - just like Bruce waits for the people to go in swimming.

And then you get blended into gore.

When Johnny Depp gets dragged down into his bed and then spewed out all across the ceiling bears a striking resemblance to Alex Kintner being turned into chum on his raft.

And because the movie didn’t have a big budget, it had to hide Krueger a lot of the time (his make up could only be half done), making him a whole lot scarier.

Now it’s time to go back to the 60s, where it all started.

Twitchy Norman Bates with his stuffed birds and Adams Family Mansion on the hill had serious ‘Mommy Issues’. When he’s done peeping through the wall, he gets all stabby and there’s nowhere for poor Marion Crane (Janet Leigh - mother of Jamie Lee Curtis) to go.

Is Marion being punished for her affair and embezzlement or was she just really unlucky in her choice of hostelry?

Whatever the case, Hitchcock made the entire world terrified of having a shower and it wasn’t until Jaws came along that people associated something so mundane as water with violent death.

It’s been noted before that Marion is a lot like Chrissie. They’re both blonde, both naked, both in water and it’s implied that both are sexually promiscuous. Quite often these are the ‘rules’ that slasher movies adhere rigidly to.

Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho (1960)

Words by Tim Armitage

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