"Jaws (Style A)" Movie Poster

shark and the costal resort of Amity Island becomes a frantic place to stay. Spielberg reveals the shark bit by bit making us imagine what it looks all together like e.g. only revealing the dorsal fin and a bit of the torso in the Kinter boy attack. Brody reels in Marine Biologist Matt Hooper (played by Dreyfuss) and the two men discover that a Great White has come to feed off their shores.    What sets Jaws apart from your average creature feature is the amount of suspense used while interest is sustained through good characterization, acting and great dialogue. The film also offers an insight into small tourist dependent town on an island gripped by fear, paranoia with town Mayor Larry Vaughn (played by Hamilton) eager to keep the beaches open for the much needed tourist trade. Like most holiday resorts in America, Amity Island survives on the money made in the summer season. The Mayor gives in to his own greed and jeopardizes the islands safety by turning down Brody’s plead to close the beaches. The red herring of the two boys with a cardboard fin makes us relax for the time being until Brody’s own son has a close encounter with the shark, this is the first time we see the shark’s face this makes us feel vulnerable as Spielberg may do this again in the film. Meanwhile Brody’s finally given the green light by the Mayor to hunt the eating machine down.    Unfortunately with the whole town’s resources at his disposal, Brody chooses to go to sea with Hooper and Quint (played by Shaw) a mad fisherman who owns the most rickety boat you have ever seen. Why didn’t they just take Hooper’s boat, the one with the metal hull and sonar? This ensures you that it’s going to be a weak link for the adventurers and there is going to be rough time ahead.    What then follows is the most ‘nail biting’ fishing trip of all time, with Quint trying to reel the shark in with a fishing rod! Quint then larks about with a harpoon and a stack of barrels which I would fire all at once. This makes you feel insignificant as they have no high-tech weapons to kill the shark and when it takes 3 barrels underwater with it Quint contemplates how to destroy the shark.  Quint then decides to try and drown it but runs his ship into the ground and they are stranded. This results in the ship sinking, Quint finds himself being ripped open in what I consider the worst shot of the shark in the whole film as the shark is seen with rubber like skin and bendy teeth.  Hooper disappears after being lowered in the ‘indestructible’ shark cage where we see a mixture of real shark footage mechanical shark and the comparison of the monster’s size to Hooper. When the cage returns absolutely demolished you realize how huge and powerful the great white actually is. The ship sinks within a matter of minutes of Quint dying; Brody then comes eyeball to eyeball with the Great White in a sinking ship. Fortunately he read a book earlier in the film and got an idea of putting a gas canister in the sharks mouth and then Kaboom!    The shark is history, Hooper returns from under the sea but they swim back to shore but then again if there is a sea of blood wouldn’t more sharks be attracted this is another aspect of the film that makes it slightly fake.   Jaws can be thought as a thriller as it has a threat of the unknown but I think horror is the right title for it. It has many more aspects of a horror than a thriller because the film is more open to what the killer is than the killer in a thriller as they are normally revealed at the end of the film. The only change that could be made in my opinion are the special effects that in them days were good, could be made now with modern technology.       By Gary Wilkinson