Jaws rated PG-13 for violence and gore, mild language, and frightening/disturbing imagery

In honor of Shark Week 2017 it seems fitting to talk about shark movies.  Naturally I'll start with the first that comes to mind.

In this film, a huge great white shark terrorizes the waters off of normally idyllic Amity Island.  The island's economy is largely based off of summer tourism and the shark happens to begin its attacks at the start of summer season.  While the town is gripped with terror resulting the horrific shark attacks, new town police Chief Martin Brody (played by Roy Scheider) does his best to first make the town council headed by Mayor Larry Vaughn (played by Murray Hamilton) acknowledge that there are shark attacks occurring.  Brody enlists the help of marine biologist Matt Hooper (played by Richard Dreyfuss) to assist Brody in understanding more about the shark and thereby stop the shark.  When Brody's son and the mayor's son have a close encounter with the shark, Brody convinces the mayor to hire Quint (played by Robert Shaw) to kill the shark.  So Brody, Hooper, and Quint then go out on Quint's boat called the Orca to hunt and kill the shark.  The shark turns out to be worse than the three men could have imagined.

As pretty much everyone knows, Jaws the movie is based off of a book written by Peter Benchley.  The book is loosely based off of real life events that occurred off of the New Jersey coast in July 1916.  Unfortunately this film inspired a lot of fear of sharks.  Thankfully we are more educated about sharks now.

Interestingly enough this film was listed the number 1 scariest film in the top 100 scary movies of all time.  This film plays to visceral fears that everyone has of A) the unkown and B) facing an apex predator and being powerless in the face of it.

Another noteworthy aspect of this picture is that this film contains the first reference to the U.S.S. Indianapolis for most people unfamiliar with that horrific event prior to this film.

Lots of people like to make fun of how fake-looking the shark looks and how silly the effects look as well.  Some of those same people either have are unaware or have forgotten that when this movie was released, this film was the first of its kind.  The "nightmare" aspects of filming particularly revolving around the use of the shark ended up working to the picture's advantage and upped the suspense.

This film is a classic that shouldn't be missed although it might be too much for younger children.  I personally was traumatized enough by this movie that I used to be scared of the deep end of the pool.  After I got older and wiser, I am now only comfortable going into the ocean at knee deep level.  I have a healthy respect for sharks but I even now this film makes me jumpy.