Here's what the eerie narrator says about this villain in the trailer.
"There is a creature alive today. Who has survived millions of years of evolution. Without change, without passion and without logic. It lives to kill. A mindless eating machine. It will attack and devour anything. It is as if God created the devil and gave him Jaws."
THE SHARK (JAWS)
Before I start talking about it, I'm sure a lot of you are thinking "Tyler that's not a person!" Even though you are right that doesn't stop me for making it as my number favorite. In case if you haven't noticed, there are indeed some people put villains who are not human on the top of their lists. Both Gene Siskel and Doug Walker put the Robot HAL from "2001: A Space Odyssey" as number 1 on their lists and it's not human. Doug Walker also put the Devil in "Fantasia" (I know it has a name but they never say his name in the film) as the number one best Disney Villain and he's not only not human, but only shows up for a few minutes. Even creatures like the Alien has appeared on countless lists, and it doesn't have much of a personality. So regardless what your argument is that's not ever going to change the Shark being my all time favorite all-time, and I' shall gladly go into detail why.
WARNING: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS
The scary thing about the shark is we don't see it until we get to the climax of the movie. Most time we see through its eyes as the epic scary theme by John Williams plays. In the beginning of the film, the shark feeds on a naked female swimmer and the scary thing about the scene is we just see the girl being tossed around screaming until she's pulled under water. Just imagining what the shark is munching on down there, is in many ways more disturbing than actually seeing it. Originally the director Steven Spielberg was going to have the shark leap out of the water and swallow the victim, but decided to not do it because he'd think the rest of the film wouldn't be scary and you know what, he's right. I also like that we don't see the blood either. The deaths that happen in the film gradually get more shocking and grotesque as it's building up to the shark's reveal, that I think is highly clever than using every technique when scaring the viewer in the first scene. And as if the image of Chrissie being pulled underwater and disappearing isn't chilling enough, the next day as Chief Brody looks for her on the beach, all we see of her is her hand being eaten by crabs, which gives us our very first image involving somebody losing a limb that appears when we least expect it.
The Mayor of the Island
refuses to close the beaches since the summer is the time of year where they make most of their money, so the beaches are kept open and what follows is a very intense scene. Brody is with his family on the
beach, but is very uncomfortable because he knows that there's a shark in the water,
but there's nothing he can do about it. Throughout the scene, we think we see
the shark but it turns out to be something else. The first time when we know
the Shark is at the beach is when the owner of a dog, calls out the dog's name
where the only thing we see of the dog is the fetching stick floating in the
water. The shark then decides to feed on another human being and the human it
chooses to eat is a little boy riding on a raft. As we see the boy getting
eaten; we see fountains of blood squirting out of the child; and the last we see ever of the
child is him being dragged under the water screaming as blood nearly covers the
screen. Chief Brody yells for the people to get out of the water and as
people rush, we see the Mother looking for his son, but all that's left of him
is a ripped up bloody raft. That has to be one of the harshest deaths I have
ever seen on screen and to make things worse it's happening to a child.
After when the Mayor offers a reward to kill the shark, we
see two guys on a small dock where one of them put their wife's holiday roast on a hook
to capture the shark. As time goes by, they see the chain being pulled and as the chain
reaches its end, it makes the dock collapse, sending the two men to fall into
the water. One of them makes it on land, while the other one is being chased by the shark after his friend sees a piece of the dock turning around and follows him. What
I love about this scene is it has a good mix between horror and comedy almost like the
encounter with Ichabod and The Headless Horseman in Disney's "The Adventures Of Ichabod and Mr.Toad". You have two men who don't
know what they're doing; one of them whines; they're using a roast expecting to actually capture the shark with it and buy a replacement with the money they would earn; and it is revealed in dialogue that after the
failed capture, they sit there trying to figure out how to tell Charlie's wife
about what happened "To her freezer full of meat". But as you're laughing at how foolish they are, the darkness, music, angles, and the image of the dock chasing after poor Charlie creates an eerie mood that gives me goosebumps!
Brody hires marine biologist Matt Hooper to help out. Hooper confirms that the girl (From the beginning of the film) was killed by a shark and when a group of Shark hunters capture the shark, Matt proves to Brody that it's not thee shark. Matt and a drunken Brody who's afraid of the water, go on a boat and search for the shark at night. They see a bucket of chum drifting on the ocean and find a damaged boat. Matt decides to go down below and check it out. In one hole, he finds a Shark tooth, which appears to be the tooth of a great white. As Matt looks through another hole, we hear a loud screech and see the head of a dead captain. That scene always catches me off guard as the scene is given a very ominous feel to create a heavy atmosphere to add to the levels of tension.
Even though Matt and Brody know that there's a shark still coming after people on the shores of Amity Island, the Mayor still keeps the beaches open. After two kids pull off a hoax which causes a massive panic, the real
Shark is in the pond where Brody's son is. Brody's son Michael and his friends
are on a sailboat that he got for his birthday and they see a man in a little
row boat talking to them. The Shark knocks both boats over and swallows
the man in front of Michael and all that's left of him is his bloody leg.
If you look carefully, you can see for a few seconds of the shark creeping up and munching on him, making it the first reveal of the shark.
Shockingly the death of the man in the estuary and Michael's close encounter with the shark was supposed to be longer. What was originally supposed to happen after his leg gets torn off, we would then see him on top of the water looking barely alive
in the shark's mouth with blood oozing out of his mouth with Michael in
his hands. As he's about to take Michael underwater with him, he lets him
go and then disappears. The scene was so violent and carried a concept more disturbing than any of the other scenes that caused Speilberg to unfortunately cut it. The
shark then passes Michael leaving him in shock and is then sent to the
hospital. A distressed Mayor finally decides to hire a salty sea captain named Quint to kill the shark
because his kids "were at that beach too".
Our three main characters Brody, Hooper and Quint go out on a boat to kill the Shark where the story officially begins. As they're in open water, Quint feels something pulling his fishing pole. He straps himself and gets ready for battle. Again, we don't see the shark but we do know it's there even though Hooper denies it. The scary part is we don't know what the shark is going to do, even when it's under the boat. The wire then snaps and Quint proves to Hooper that only a shark can bite through a piano wire.
Later on, Brody starts chumming to attract the shark and
while he's making a joke, the shark suddenly appears out of the water biting
the chum. A frightened Chief Brody slowly walks backwards and tells
Quint, one of the most famous improvised lines in cinema history and the three
of them are amazed of how big the shark is. This scene not only
shows fully the shark, but it happens during a joke and before you could even laugh,
the shark appears catching you off guard and scares the viewers
nearly half to death. As the shark circles the boat, Quint fires a harpoon at
the shark with a barrel attached to it, to tire the shark out and keep track of it, but the shark successfully manages to dive underwater leaving the three men disappointed, as their boat drifts into a gorgeous yet foreboding sunset.
We then cut to one of the best scenes in the movie. The
three men are eating dinner and drinking, they show each other their scars, and
Quint tells a chilling story about his experience on "The U.S.S.
Indianapolis. What I love about the film and the villain is the
dialogue they give about the shark or sharks in general. A couple of my
favorite lines are "To open the beaches on the fourth of
July is like ringing the dinner bell"; "I'm not going to waste my
time arguing with a man who's lining up to be a hot lunch."; " he
keeps swimmin' around in a place where the feeding is good until the food
supply is gone."; "This was no boat accident, it was a shark"; "I
think that I am familiar with the fact that you are going to ignore this
particular problem until it swims up and BITES YOU ON THE ASS!"; "
Back home we got a taxidermy man. He's gonna have a heart attack when he sees
what I brung him!"; and of course "You're gonna need a bigger
boat". The one that tops it all is Quint's story which took three
people to write including the actor Robert Shaw. Even though it's a bit
historically inaccurate, it’s still a great speech. My favorite part of
the speech is how Quint talks about a shark. "You know, the thing about a
shark... he's got lifeless eyes. Black eyes. Like a doll's eyes. When he comes
at ya, doesn't seem to be living... until he bites ya, and those black eyes
roll over white and then... ah then you hear that terrible high-pitched screamin'.
The ocean turns red, and despite all the poundin' and the hollerin', they all
come in and they... rip you to pieces." But the most disturbing part of the story is when Quint finds his old friend where he discovers that "he had been bitten in half below the waist". After the speech, they sing a song
and all of a sudden the Shark comes back and attacks them, damaging their boat and dogging Quint's bullets. After the attack the three men sit
on the boat, while drifting by a full moon as a shooting stars pass them. My god what an incredible scene, that for me sums up nearly everything that makes this film such a classic!
While fixing the damaged boat, the Shark appears again. As
they reach for the barrels, the Shark catches the audience off guard again, injuring Quint that's then followed by an epic duel between the three men and the shark. They fire harpoons
with barrels attached to them; shoot bullets at it; tie it up; and try to drown it to shallow
water but shark not only can take every abuse, but it's also highly intelligent unlike any other shark that Quint has ever faced. It damages
the boat; pulls the boat backwards while it's tied up; and chases after
the boat at full speed, while the boat's moving slow.
While the boat is sinking, Matt decides to go into an anti
shark cage to get closer to the shark and stab it with poison in the mouth. As Matt is in
the cage, the shark tries to break the cage open to kill Matt. During this
thrilling scene, Matt drops the needle and is scared to death. He even takes
out a knife and stabs the shark multiple times and the Shark still charges at
him with no effect at all. Matt escapes from the shark and hides, while the
shark tares the cage apart. The cool thing about this scene is if you look
closely you can see the actual Shark footage. When the Sharks tearing the cage
apart when Hopper escapes, that's not an animatronic its real footage of a shark that in reality got its nose
caught in the cage, that fits the scene brilliantly.
The Shark then leaps out of the water and cracks the boat in half. As the boat sinks, Quint slides into the mouth of the shark and gets the most brutal death in the whole movie. You actually see the shark eat him from his waist and tare him apart while Quint's stabbing the shark with a knife. Once the shark takes one last chomp of Quint, he pukes out blood and his body goes underwater and gets swallowed. I swear this has to be one of the most violent scenes that I ever saw in film, and one of the most poetically horrofying ones as well since Quint is suffering the same fate that his fellow troops have suffered.
Brody is now left alone and has to kill the shark
himself. The shark burst through the cabin windows trying to eat Brody,
but he throws a scuba tank with compressed air in the Shark's mouth and
climbs up the mast (Which by the way, the actor had to improvise
his way out). He tries to stab the shark with a harpoon, but then loses
it, leading us to one of the best death scenes to ever
happen to a villain. As the Shark charges at Brody, he shoots the compressed
air tank which causes the shark to explode and then we the shark sinks to
the bottom of the ocean while hearing a roar of a T-Rex as a reference
to Spielberg's film "Duel" and some what
foreshadows on Spielberg's later film "Jurassic Park". Brody and
Matt swim to shore and the film ends.
Another huge reason why I chose the shark as number 1 is the
many difficulties Spielberg had with it. The guy who made the Shark was a
retired special effects maker named Bob Mattey (Who created the giant squid in
one of my favorite live action Disney films "20,000 Leagues Under The
Sea"). Once he and his crew finished making the shark they
named it Bruce (Which will be made fun of in Disney Pixar's "Finding
Nemo".). As soon as Spielberg got the shark, he had many problems with it. It
would malfunction in the cruel cold
water; it would not work half the time; and it even sunk to the bottom of the
ocean once. Spielberg and the crew waited for days and days for the shark to
work and if he doesn't finish the film soon, Spielberg would be fired
and probably wouldn't want to direct ever again. Meaning we would more that likely won't have classics like "E.T.", "Jurassic Park", "Schindler's List", and "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
My third huge reason is the reception the film got. Audiences who saw this film were scared to death. Most people didn't even go swimming after they saw this film; some didn't go into their own bathtub. The shark is also still scary even to this day. The build up to it; lack of screen time; the score; the directing; the acting from the main characters; and the dialogue, make it not only my favorite villain, but also one of my all time favorite films as well. Unlike most villains, the shark only has one purpose and that's to kill. It doesn't have a plan, it doesn't have remorse, and nothing will stop it from killing people. Every scene with the sharks is scary as hell and will make you think twice before going into the water.
"JAWS. SEE IT BEFORE YOU GO SWIMMING"
Now for those of you who are wondering why I didn't put a Disney Villain or a Batman Villain on my list. Well, those are different lists.
Tune in later this week for the next list.
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