Steven Spielberg’s horror masterpiece Jaws is considered first blockbuster ever. It is based on the novel of the same name by Peter Benchley. Thanks to the large-scale advertising campaign, the streets were deserted in the summer of 1975 because almost everyone wanted to see the film Jaws. This also cemented summer as the peak season for the biggest cinema hits of the year.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws can now be seen in a flat rate on Amazon Prime Video.
Animal horror thriller on Amazon with one of the most frightening monsters in film history
That’s what it’s about: A brutal series of attacks on bathers and boats rocks the coastal town of Amity Island. A great white shark is causing mischief and endangering the beach as a popular bathing resort. To defy danger, police chief Martin Brody (Roy Scheider) teams up with shark catcher Quint (Robert Shaw) and marine biologist Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss). Together they hunt the monster.
Universal Pictures
The White shark
With the choice of the great white shark as the antagonist, the film became one of the defining representatives of animal horror films. This makes Jaws an important piece of film history and a great pioneering work for the cinema landscape of the next decades.
The aftereffects of Jaws are still felt today
The success of Jaws had several consequences. In addition to changing the cinema landscape, several sequels were produced. However, the three successors Jaws 2, Jaws 3D and Jaws 4 could neither match the quality of the original nor were they successful.
Jaws also started the trend of making monster movies with sharks. The Sharknado Trash film series is probably one of the best-known examples.
The shark, which was used by Steven Spielberg as an antagonist, received an extremely bad reputation as a result. Many viewers developed one great fear of the sea predator. In the summer of publication alone, the number of beach visits in the USA fell significantly and an increased number of shark sightings were recorded.
The sharks’ poor reputation and the perpetuation of negative stereotypes of the animal are still associated with the film today. To this day, researchers like Shark Stewards are fighting these stereotypes and trying to provide information about the true nature of sharks. Steven Spielberg himself also regrets the influence his film has had on the perception of sharks, as he revealed to the BBC in 2022:
To this day I regret the decimation of the shark population due to the book and the film.
Steven Spielberg’s Great White Shark can now be seen with a subscription on Amazon Prime Video.
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