JAWS (1975)
There was some back-and-forth among the writers here at The Screengrab over whether Steven Spielberg’s first blockbuster should be included on a list of classic horror movies. But ultimately, it made the cut because, whether or not it qualifies as a horror movie, the truth is that it’s seriously scary. A far cry from the long-standing King of Hollywood Filmmakers who has become semi-notorious for his inability to satisfactorily end his movies, the Spielberg who made Jaws did so with one thing on his mind -- to scare the ever-loving shit out of the audience. And oh man, did he ever succeed. Much has been made of the technical issues with the animatronic shark “Bruce” forcing Spielberg to find clever ways to make the shark’s presence felt onscreen (who can forget that moment when the dock slowly turns around?). However, the withholding of actual shots of the shark actually makes him more frightening, given all the buildup he’s had up to that point. Along with being Spielberg’s most frightening movie, it’s also his most perfectly structured, divided almost evenly between the attacks on the townspeople and the mission by Brody, Quint, and Hooper to bring down the toothy killer. The first half has plenty of good scares to be sure -- the head popping out of the boat, for one -- but it’s the second hour that makes Jaws a classic. The setup is little more than three men on an old boat, and as the makeshift crew hunts down, then fends off, the shark, Spielberg never once cuts back to the mainland. The claustrophobia that results causes the tension to skyrocket, so that every time the shark returns to take another shot at bringing down the boat, the film becomes ever more nerve-wracking. But for all the brutal attacks we see, nothing in Jaws burrows under your skin quite like Quint’s immortal monologue about his experiences aboard the Indianapolis, in which he shares his first-hand knowledge of just how much damage sharks can do.
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