Great movie, except for the shark...

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2013)

Saw this again on TV last night and it still works; it's one of the great monster movies alright, but the only thing wrong with it is the monster. Oh, the vast majority of 'Jaws' is spot-on; Spielberg has correctly concentrated on the characters and not the situation. The mayor's grotesquely 'loud' jackets are just a little too obvious a labeling device but otherwise the town and its characters ring true, and we are swept along with these ordinary local folk as the plot develops. Robert Shaw's Quint has a few rather hammy scenery-chewing moments, and the actor does occasionally appear to have had himself a wee private party before filming some scenes. Still, he is supposed to be a local weirdo, and so his 'crusty old sea-dog' shtick isn't too much of a distraction. The changing relationships between the three men on the 'Orca' is another welcome subtlety often missing from horror movies. After establishing a supremely sinister presence throughout the movie, we must inevitably see the shark, and the more we do, the less we want to. The much-trumpeted animatronic creature doesn't really look alive, and even back in 1975 when audiences had no access to movies outside of a theatre, the moment when the 'shark' rears up out of the water and flops against the stern of the Orca looked absurdly like the attack of a colossal salami sausage. It's not a perfect movie, but 'Jaws' is most of the way there, and aspiring horror writers could do way worse than take a leaf or three from its meticulous care with the characters. After all, they are our stand-ins, and if we don't identify with them then horror turns to farce or worse still, tedium.