J = Jaws by Peter Benchley

 

“There's nothing in the sea this fish would fear. Other fish run from bigger things. That's their instinct. But this fish doesn't run from anything. He doesn't fear.” ― Peter Benchley, Jaws

Amity Island thrives off tourism. The local businesses are run off of "summer people" who are visiting for the beautiful beaches. But when a Great White chooses Amity as its new hunting ground, people die, tourism fails, and the economy stumbles. The responsibility falls to Amity Police Chief Martin Brody to protect the people and figure out how to get rid of the shark.

The book is decidedly not that scary by modern day expectations. There's an anti-elitist theme underlying the work; Brody's a working-class man with "traditional values" and he doesn't particularly care for the rich tourists his town depends on for survival. His wife Ellen, is a "traditional housewife" from an affluent family and he's become resentful that she might miss her old life more than she loves him; she's resentful of him because she does. There's an awkward couple of pages, where a black man and his son are talking and the last bit of dialogue is something along the lines of, "Sharks don't eat black people?" And I'm not sure if this is Peter being racist, or to whom he's trying to be racist against, or a continuation of his theme of: Entitled white people getting what they deserve. Couldn't tell you.

As the shark instills fear in the heart of the citizens, they start acting poorly themselves. A politician making decisions based on the needs of Mob bosses, Ellen having an affair with a face from her past, and Brody falling into alcohol and temper-tantrums.

The ending of the book, way different than the movie. Thematic, instead of cinematic.

"You're gonna need a bigger boat."

I'm not a horror movie person, as a general rule, but this would be at the top of my favorite horrors on my very small "Horror movies I've seen" list. At the very least, it's a fun summertime flick.

The synopsis remains the same as the novel. A shark off the coast of Amity Island is terrorizing the citizens. But the characters have been rewritten to put them in a better, less amoral light. No cheating, no organized crime, and less drinking. These reductions are fine by me because I didn't really want to watch a movie about raging alcoholism and sharks.

I don't know if the mechanical shark would have been considered cutting edge special effects at the time, but either way it still makes me jump when it pops out of the water (but as previously mentioned my tolerance for horror is low). And somehow the filmmakers made you feel the horror of the deep blue sea, when they were only standing in knee deep water.

The movie is way better than the book in my humble opinion. There are thrills at every turn and suspense in between them. The book has its own merits, but comparatively speaking, the book plods along while the movie races.

The book gets four stars, the movie gets five.