Still hold up....more or less...

Rating: 7/10 (24 September 2018)

Jaws was the original summer blockbuster movie. Its the story of a police chief who believes a shark is responsible for a number of unexplained deaths and his fight with a local mayor, who is worried that closing the resort to protect the public will destroy the local economy.
However the action with the shark seems to have overtaken the rest of the narrative in many peoples minds due to the effectiveness of the shark scenes which terrified audiences at the time. Anyone who watched this movie in the past recalls the shark attacks but the main driver of the story, which was about officials arguing about financial survival versus public safety, is less well remembered.
Many of the sequels of Jaws seemed to focus more on the shark action than narrative, which seems to have angered many of the fans of the original to the extent they have exaggerated how bad they sequels actually were.
The thing is, the shark scenes, driven by the now famous score were only as effective as they were due to them having a shark which looked terrible on film. As a result its screen time was minimised which added to the air of menace.
The cast in this movie is iconic. However many of the deaths come as less of a shock as they do in the second movie. In some cases not everyone who dies is a sympathetic character.....
Watching this movie in 2018, this is no longer a film which is as shocking as it would have been in 1975. Horror movies have moved on and this is now seen as more of a thriller than something that would deliver real scares. As such its viewed more in terms of being a decent quality movie with great characters but the effects etc may not scare your average cinema goer. Remember this was an A rating when it was released, it was then downgraded to a PG. It will likely still scare kids but adults not so much.
If you haven't already seen this movie where have you been? Its a genuine classic, just don't expect it to give you nightmares like it would have to audiences in the 70s.