Steven Spielberg’s classic horror thriller awakened deep anxieties about the ocean through its tense depiction of a lurking, hungry great white shark. Fifty years later, it could still give sensitive viewers nightmares. And ‘Jaws’ includes more blood, profanity, drinking and shadowy nudity than we see in PG movies today.
Chief Martin Brody moved to Amity Island from New York City to escape the high levels of crime and terrible violence in the streets there. I mean, if you want to keep your young kids safe, moving to a little vacation community is likely the best choice. The worst that ever happens in Amity is kids karate-chopping a picket fence.
The sun and surf, you see, tend to mellow people out.
However, this summer, people aren’t the problem. The local coroner suggests there’s been a shark attack. And when Brody looks at the ravaged remains of what used to be a woman, he can’t help but agree.
Of course, a shark attack near a seaside vacation spot just before the 4th of July is a major problem. And Amity’s Mayor Vaughn makes that very clear. Cut off the beach, and the community’s business will suffer. The summer-vacation business is Amity’s lifeblood, period.
There can’t be any rumors about sharks.
Against Brody’s better judgement, the death is recategorized as an unfortunate accident involving a late-night swimmer and a boat propellor. Brody objects. He pushes back. He pleads. I mean, he’s never even heard of a boat propeller doing what happened to this poor young woman. But the best he can do is to keep his own children out of the water.
When the second killing happens—the Kintner boy attacked and consumed amid a crowd of swimmers—there are too many witnesses to blame it on a boat propeller with teeth.
There is definitely a shark.
Scores of half-drunk fishermen head out and bring back a tiger shark that Vaughn chains up, proclaiming that the danger passed. Open the beaches. Bring in the crowds. The 4th goes on as planned.
When the next attack takes place, though, even Mayor Vaughn has to admit that something must be done. His own kids were in the water this time.
So Brody turns to experts. And both the seasoned oceanographer, Hooper, and a grizzled shark hunter named Quint agree: This killer is no tiger shark. This was something really big. Likely a great white; maybe 15 to 20 feet long, with a ton or more of heft. In fact, killing this thing is going to be a bigger task than either of them have ever faced.
And for the first time … Brody wonders what the relatively safe streets of New York City are like this year.
Chief Brody wants to do the right thing. He protects his wife and kids and pushes to keep people out of the water. But his safety precautions are overridden by the town’s mayor for political and business reasons. So Brody decides to take up watch on the local beach, hoping to help if there’s even a hint of danger.
Ultimately the chief puts his life on the line to take on the beast and keep people safe. Hooper and Quint join Broady as a small crew searching for and battling the shark. They each fight to protect one another.
None.
A young couple meet at a party and head to the beach for a swim, removing clothing as they go. Their figures are mostly obscured in the shadowy night, but it’s very evident that the young woman strips off everything before jumping into the water. (The inebriated guy strips down to his boxer shorts before passing out on the beach.) We then see the female swimmer from a shark’s eye view, again, her form is shadowed but visible.
When the chief and his wife, Ellen, roll out of bed, he’s dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, and she wears a cleavage-baring nightgown. We later see scores and scores of beachgoers frolicking in the sun and water in swimsuits, including bikinis.
Ellen notices Brody’s stress level and asks him if he’d like to “get drunk and fool around.” He readily agrees, but they are called away from their plans. Quint spouts a variety of sexually tinged shanties and poems, such as “Here’s to swimmin’ with bow legged women.”
The threat of bloody violence is a prominent part of this film’s action.
We see several gory attacks, including a woman being savagely yanked back and forth in the bloody water by a shark beneath her; a boy being pulled into the depths in a geyser of blood and water; a man ripped to pieces, his leg falling to the sea bottom; another victim being bitten in half.
But some of this film’s scariest parts are threats we don’t actually see, taking a page out of Alfred Hitchcock’s playbook. The camera swims among the kicking legs of women and children, for example. Boats are battered and capsized by massive blows to their hulls. Objects attached to the gigantic shark move in the water toward helpless swimmers.
We also see still pictures of other shark-attack victims (presumably real photos at that) with massive chunks of flesh missing from their body and limbs, along with individuals with healed scars from shark attacks. When Hooper is called in to examine the first attack victim’s remains, he lists the physical trauma he sees and picks up the woman’s severed and mangled arm.
We’re shown a dead tiger shark with its bloodied mouth held open by a hook. Hooper cuts into this shark and pulls free the contents of its stomach, gagging at the smell.
Brody scoops bloody fish heads and guts (a shark-attracting concoction called chum) into the water. Elsewhere, the great white antagonist in the film rips a shark cage to pieces, threatening its occupant. It swims up and even into a sinking boat. A decapitated head with a missing eye floats out of the rent-open hull of a foundering boat.
We see Brody, Quint and Hooper hit and ripped by sliding, heavy ropes, battered by barrels, cut by flying glass and generally pummeled on Quint’s boat. Quint and Hooper compare scars from past injuries. And Quint tells a story of the U.S.S. Indianapolis sinking while he was a part of the crew. He describes the terror of 1,100 men being attacked and slowly decimated by a shiver of feeding sharks. An oxygen tank is shot and erupts in a massive explosion.
Children and elderly people are run over by a panicking crowd.
There’s just one s-word in the dialogue, but scores of other crudities including multiple uses of “b–ch,” “a–,” “d–n,” “b–tard” and “h—.”
God and Jesus’ names are both profaned more than a dozen times total (three of those blending God with “d–n”). Someone uses an offensive hand gesture.
Broady and his wife sip whiskey. Quint drinks and shares his own private batch of moonshine. Hooper goes to Brody’s house with two bottles of wine. An already-tipsy Brody fills a tumbler with wine and begins gulping it down, while Hooper pours small glasses for himself and Ellen. Quint, Hooper and Brody get drunk while onboard the boat as they hunt for the shark. They then proceed to sing an old drinking song together.
Many people smoke throughout the film, including Brody, Quint and Mayor Vaughn.
Hooper tries to inject the shark with a toxic synthetic compound.
Along with the mayor, other town leaders push to open the local beaches despite the obvious danger. A couple of kids purposely terrify scores of panicking people with a fake shark fin. The mayor convinces a malleable newspaper reporter to help cover up the bloody mauling of a young woman.
For its 50th anniversary, Jaws swims across the big screen again with a new 4K visual restoration. And for those not well-versed on this Steven Spielberg-directed film, I’ll say that it’s definitely a groundbreaking piece of moviemaking.
Not only is Jaws an incredibly well-crafted and well-paced horror/thriller, but it’s wonderfully acted, too. There were other movie blockbusters before it, but Jaws was the first film ever to crest that golden $100 million box-office mark. And it’s thought of as the first modern summer blockbuster, a movie that fundamentally changed how Hollywood marketed and released its movies.
On top of all that, the summer of 1975 saw a marked and measurable decrease in vacationers venturing out for a seaside swim. And that was easily attributed to the popularity and fearful impact of this singular film.
These days, however, you might be wondering if this pic could possibly be as frightening as it was when it was originally released. I mean, we’re used to modern CGI and its über realism. Can a clunky mechanical shark and practical movie effects possibly live up to that? Could you maybe take your kids to see this old film without any problematic issues?
My answers to those questions are, respectively, yes and no.
Yes, Jaws holds up onscreen. What it lacks in terms of special effects wizardry, it more than makes up for in terms of pacing, acting and old-fashioned Hitchcockian suspense. And, of course, John Williams unforgettable, anxiety-inducing orchestral score remains just as iconically unnerving as the lurking predator itself.
That said, the film’s shadowy shots of flashing nudity feel surprisingly jarring in a PG film (especially given this re-release’s higher-res, 4K update). The growled-out language is just as profane. And the jump scares and geysering bloodiness are just as messy and at points a little terrifying. That’s particularly true if you’ve never actually seen this film on a big screen.
So, no, inviting your young family members in for a little swim down scary-memory-lane might not be the best choice here. Jaws reminds us that PG movies from 1975 could include a lot more content than a movie with a similar rating today.
From a cinematographic point of view, this pic remains an all-time movie classic. But when looked at from Plugged In point of view, I can’t shout, “Come on in, the waters fine.” That would make me as culpable as Mayor Vaughn once was.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
