I Haven't Been To the Beach Since 1974

Rating: 8/10 (27 January 2007)

That is how much this movie plays with your head. I know, there is very little chance of being attacked by a shark, but that one or two or however much percent chance of that happening was enough to convince me to stay out of the water after seeing this movie. Let's face it, folks, "Bruce" or "The Great White Turd" as Steven Spielberg himself affectionately called him (and that's what it looked like when Brody shot him and he sank to the bottom of the ocean) made King Kong, Godzilla, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man et al look like wimps. Some of the macabre humor in this movie made you feel uneasy while you were laughing, eg., Mayor Vaughn's line "I'm not going to have all these people standing around here while you do some half-assed autopsy on a fish." As good as this movie, and the book is, I can't help thinking that this story is a rip-off of MOBY DICK, with Captain Quint being the Captain Ahab character with his obsession with capturing the shark, and in the ugly manner in which he died. Also, at least in the book, Chief Brody was the sole surviving Ishmael character (in the book, Matt Hooper gets eaten alive while he is in that shark cage). Also, great white whale vs. great white shark. A lot of parallels.
This movie does keep you on the edge of your seat. And this is the soundtrack that put John Williams on the map. Before, he was the man behind TV shows THE TIME TUNNEL and GILLIGAN'S ISLAND. He also did those Irwin Allen disaster movies EARTHQUAKE, THE TOWERING INFERNO and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Now, he is probably the greatest living composer (along with Ennio Morricone). The thing about this soundtrack is, when you listen to it by itself, you don't have to watch the movie to know what is going on. It is so vivid, you can picture in your mind's eye exactly what is happening on the screen. Great horror thriller and soundtrack. 8 out of 10.