A brilliant classic horror film is now available on Amazon. With this film, Steven Spielberg was the first director to achieve what no one before him has. The consequences can still be felt today despite the really bad sequels
Steven Spielberg’s horror masterpiece Jaws is considered the 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 empty in the summer of 1975 because almost everyone wanted to see the movie Jaws. This also cemented the summer as the peak season for the biggest cinema hits of the year.
Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is now available as a flat-rate movie on Amazon Prime Video
Animal horror thriller on Amazon with one of the most terrifying monsters in film history
This is what it’s about: A brutal series of attacks on bathers and boats shakes the coastal town of Amity Island. A great white shark is wreaking havoc and endangering the beach as a popular seaside resort. To defy the 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 down the monster
(Jaws)
With the choice of the great white shark as antagonist, the film became one of the defining representatives of the animal horror film. Jaws was thus an important piece of film history and a major pioneering work for the cinema landscape of the following decades.
The after-effects of Jaws can still be felt today
The success of Jaws had several consequences. In addition to changing the cinema landscape, several sequels were produced. However, the three sequels 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 films with sharks. The Sharknado trash film series is probably one of the best-known examples.
The shark, which was used as an antagonist by Steven Spielberg, gained an extremely bad reputation as a result. Many viewers developed a great fear of the marine predator. In the summer of the release alone, the number of beach visits in the USA fell significantly and an increased number of shark sightings were recorded.
The bad reputation of sharks and the perpetuation of negative stereotypes of the animal are still associated with the film today. To this day, researchers such as Shark Stewards fight against these stereotypes and try to inform people 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:
