Offshore Killing
Article by Bindi Lavelle

The summer of 1975 saw a massive lack of beach-goers, the general public was afraid to swim in the ocean because of a little film called, Jaws.

Based on Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel of the same name, Jaws basically follows a sea side community besieged with terror following a series of brutal and fatal shark attacks. The town’s police chief, a marine biologist and a local fisherman get together to hunt the hunter.

The film was so effective in scaring the audience because rather than giving the audience a fantastic mythical beast or bizarre sci-fi villain, the audience was given something straight out of nature. The nemesis of the piece was an aggressive great white shark, something unlike, say Mothra, you could possibly encounter, thus scaring folks right off the beach.

But more importantly, Jaws saw the rise of the rise of the blockbuster film and of course its king, Steven Spielberg. The Oscar winning film (best editing, best sound, best music/original score) spawned 3 sequels: Jaws 2, Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge, needless to say none of them stood up to the original. That aside the powerful images of the original coupled with John Williams score are still tense and haunting.

The film’s leading man, Bruce the great white shark has since quietly retired to the universal studios theme park, and he always makes time for his fans.