Jaws knockoffs

Jaws turns 45 this year, so this article looks at films which were inspired by that classic movie.

On social media in recent months, some have compared the narratives of a few classic horror films such as Night of the Living Dead and Jaws to the coronavirus pandemic that the world is currently going through. But the purpose of this article is to point out the impact the latter film, which turns 45 this year, has had on Hollywood since its release. Many, including yours truly, have already written about how the great success of Spielberg’s film began the big studios’ practice of putting out big-budget films during the summer. For obvious reasons, 2020 has become an exception to that.

But Jaws, like Psycho before it and Halloween after it, quickly spawned a number of imitators with the same “nature strikes back at humanity” theme. Here now is a brief look at five such films which stood out for me.

Grizzly (1976)

The title alone made comparisons to Jaws inevitable, even though this movie was already in production when Jaws hit theaters. Instead of a beach community, the film is set in a national park (filmed in Georgia) whose head ranger (Christopher George) soon learns that a huge grizzly bear is killing people throughout the park. The rest of the film’s narrative is basically the same as Jaws, with George in Roy Scheider’s role and Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel playing the Richard Dreyfuss and Robert Shaw roles respectively.

But the film has a nice atmosphere to it and the moments where the beast strikes certainly make the viewer jump. Also, the production deserves credit for managing to get an actual Kodiak (named Teddy, who was the biggest bear in captivity at the time) to play the title creature. Jaws drew attention for the countless issues the mechanical shark was giving that production. But getting a large, real bear (claws and all) to act was quite the accomplishment as well.

The initial poor reviews the film received didn’t stop it from becoming successful and developing its own following over the decades.

Orca (1977)

This is probably the most infamous of the films Jaws inspired. Heck, the title (which is Latin for killer whale) was even the name of Quint’s boat in Jaws. Its producer, Dino De Laurentiis, made it clear that he wanted this film to outshine Jaws early on in the film, when its killer whale kills a great white shark. But the moment everyone remembers is when the title creature rips off the leg of a girl played by Bo Derek. And it did end up predating Jaws 3-D with its storyline of a sea monster getting revenge on those who killed its loved one.

Otherwise, the film plays out basically the way you would expect, wasting a nice cast, including Richard Harris and Keenan Wynn in the process. Although Harris certainly gave it his all, even insisting on performing his own stunts, and reportedly nearly killing himself in the process.

Piranha (1978)

Like De Laurentiis, Piranha producer Roger Corman was eager to jump on the Jaws bandwagon. In the Corman retrospective Crab Monsters, Teenage Cavemen, and Candy Strip Nurses, Corman was quoted as saying that he needed to shift gears once Jaws was released, as its success quickly prompted the studios to focus their energy on pictures that would basically outdo the kinds that he had been by that point been building his empire on.

Fortunately, unlike Orca, Piranha is actually both fun and scary. A bumbling investigator (Heather Menzies) goes to a mountain area attempting to locate two missing people. With the reluctant help of a mountain man (Bradford Dillman), she learns that the couple’s last stop was at a military base, where she unwittingly releases a school of genetically engineered piranha into the area’s river, which itself leads to a summer camp full of kids. The super-frantic scientist who created them (Kevin McCarthy) informs them that the creatures were initially meant to bring the Vietnam War to a quicker end before the government abandoned the idea.

Although we see a Jaws video game at the beginning of the film, Piranha focuses on its own story, allowing the audience to accept it on its own terms. Considering that CGI still didn’t exist in 1978, the title creatures, co-created by the legendary Phil Tippett, look quite scary. Also memorable are the bizarre creatures we briefly see in McCarthy’s lab before all hell breaks loose. The cast is fun to watch too, and like Orca, one of the victims is played by Keenan Wynn. This poor guy just can’t catch a break! The ending is rather haunting as well.

This film became such a classic that it got an awful sequel in 1981, Piranha II: The Spawning (James Cameron’s directorial debut) and was remade twice, in 1995 and 2010.

Cujo (1983)

The same year the dismal Piranha II: The Spawning was released, Stephen King’s novel Cujo hit bookshelves. At the time, pretty much every book King was putting out was made into a movie shortly afterward, so it’s not surprising that the film adaptation of Cujo came just two years later.

A woman (Dee Wallace) in an unhappy marriage takes her car to the rural home of mechanic for repairs. Once she and her family arrive, they realize that the only one there is the title St. Bernard, who’s been driven insane thanks to rabies he contracted from a bat at the beginning of the movie. While Spielberg’s film may not have been on the minds of King or director Lewis Teague, Cujo‘s attack scenes are every bit as intense as those in Jaws. The viewer’s heart certainly keeps pounding as Wallace and her son (Danny Pintauro) find themselves trapped in their small car with a bloodthirsty animal just waiting to pounce on them the instant they set one foot out.

Teague previously directed the film Alligator, which came out three years earlier, and was written by Piranha scribe John Sayles. While that film was entertaining, I consider Cujo superior. This may be because more than any of the other films listed here, I’ve always considered Cujo a tragedy. Cujo, while sweet looking at the beginning of the film, slowly gets a more horrific, monstrous appearance as the film goes on. The result is an onscreen transformation that’s both heartbreaking and astonishing. If any animal deserved an Oscar for acting, it’s the four St. Bernards who played Cujo.

To me, the story is also a good reminder of the importance of owners getting their pets their rabies shots.

The Meg (2018)

This is the most recent film to draw comparisons to Jaws. Based on the book by Steve Alten, the movie centers on a rescue expedition to the bottom of the Pacific Ocean that’s interrupted by the appearance of a 75 foot-long megalodon shark. Obviously, the special effects are more elaborate in this film than in the others described above. Though truthfully, the coolest images in the film were those of the underwater laboratory from which our protagonists carry out their mission. The lab, like the Sea World depicted in Jaws 3-D, even has a lot of glass windows allowing us to see the title creature kill humpback whales.

While none of the cast stands out, they’re all pleasant and go though the motions without becoming irritating, which for pictures like this, is quite an achievement in itself. Hence, The Meg is fun, while not exactly bringing anything new to the table. This is no doubt why it made enough money for discussions of a sequel.

Jaws: The Revenge vs. Superman IV: The Quest for Peace

This article looks at the respective fourth entries in the Jaws and Superman series, which, like their immediate predecessors, were released the same year.

As I noted in a previous article, both Jaws 3-D and Superman III were not only released in the same year but marked, for all intents and purposes, the beginning of the end for the series they were part of.

However, both series ended up being given one more shot to get back into their fans’ good graces. In addition, like their immediate predecessors, the respective fourth entries in the Jaws and Superman franchises were both released in the same year. But while 1987 also gave us classics such as The Princess Bride, RoboCop, Predator and Spaceballs, both Jaws: The Revenge and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace ended up being anything but classic.

So, which is worse? Let’s find out.

Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

I once noted that I Still Know What You Did Last Summer has a ridiculous title. This film, on the other hand, has a ridiculous tagline: This time, it’s personal!

After the trip to SeaWorld in Jaws 3-D, this film brings us back to Amity. We see not only the two Brody sons again (who are played by different actors) in different professions now (yes, this film ignores its immediate predecessor, not that I blame it), but also their mom Ellen (Lorraine Gary, reprising her role from the first two Jaws pictures). The Brody paterfamilias Martin has died because the late, great Roy Scheider was smart enough to leave well enough alone when it came to his most famous role.

Michael (now played by The Last Starfighter himself, Lance Guest) is a marine biologist with a wife and daughter. His little brother Sean (Mitchell Anderson) lives with his mom and his fiancée, making ends meet by following in his old man’s footsteps as the police chief.

As Christmas approaches, contrivance leads to Sean going out to sea to clear a log from a buoy. The shark of this movie then appears and kills him.

It’s at this point that the absurdity of the film’s tagline begins to emerge. Ellen is convinced that the shark deliberately targeted Sean. For the rest of the film, she continuously refers to the beast as if it was some sort of Jason-esque serial killer. Ellen even blames it for inducing the heart attack that apparently killed her husband, even though he was the one who killed the sharks of the first two movies.

Despite the fact that his mom clearly needs therapy, Michael talks her into joining him and his family down in the Bahamas. While there, Ellen becomes smitten with a carefree pilot named Hoagie (Michael Caine). But wouldn’t you know it, that same damn shark has managed to find its way down south and attempts to pick off the rest of the Brody clan.

This leads to Ellen finally taking a boat herself to go mano a mano with the shark along with Michael, Hoagie, and Michael’s coworker Jake (Mario Van Peebles). The stupidity that follows has to be seen to be believed. The famous blooper of Hoagie emerging bone dry from the ocean is only a blip compared to the headache of how the heroes manage to finally destroy this shark before the film ends with Ellen and Hoagie flying off together. Some cuts of this film even have Jake becoming shark food, while others don’t.

In his review of the Star Trek: Voyager episode “The Cloud”, YouTuber SF Debris mentions that the reason the shark targets the Brodys in this movie, according to the book’s novelization, is because of a voodoo curse. He calls this a “voodoo shark”, referring to something stupid that can only be explained away by something just as stupid, comparing it to Voyager being able to use its holodecks because its power is incompatible with the ship’s other systems (hence, giving the regulars an excuse to play on the damn things even though they’re supposed to be struggling to survive).

As stupid as the novelization’s explanation sounds, no explanation for this plot point could have given Jaws: The Revenge a chance to be watchable, let alone good.

This movie also became an example of nepotism, as Lorraine Gary, who was married to Universal’s then-President Sid Sheinberg, becomes the central focus here. In fairness, Gary herself stated that she agreed to play Ellen for a third time because of the money she was offered.

Caine’s appearance here proves that even legends have bills to pay, as we all do. Ironically, he won his first Oscar (for Hannah and Her Sisters) during the production of this movie. Happily, this film wouldn’t keep him from winning a second Oscar over a decade later (for The Cider House Rules) and being knighted not long after that.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

Christopher Reeve’s fourth and final outing as the Man of Steel is certainly more political-minded than its predecessors (more on that in a moment).

Needless to say, our hero is depressed over how the arms race is going (ironically, this film was released the same year Reagan and Gorbachev signed the historic INF treaty, which banned medium-ranged nuclear missiles) and decides to singlehandedly rid the world of all its nukes. Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman), having just broken out of prison thanks to his nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer) gets wind of this and creates a nuclear powered supervillain called Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow). What follows is basically a rehash of Superman fighting Zod and his minions in Superman II. Naturally, Superman defeats Nuclear Man (by dumping his atomic-powered ass into a power plant reactor, of all things), sends Luthor back to prison, yadda yadda yadda.

After the disappointment of Superman III, Reeve was content with never donning the famous tights and cape again. While he sought other roles, producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind sold the rights to the series in 1986 to Cannon Films, which made its name during that decade making mostly action flicks.

Considering that the Salkinds took the series into a direction fans weren’t happy with, the chance of new blood in the franchise might have given people hope that it could be restored to greatness. Alas, Cannon was beginning to reach the end of its lucrative run as the ’80s drew to a close.

In his autobiography Still Me, Reeve states that Cannon didn’t give this project priority because of budget cuts the studio made. But even budget cuts can’t excuse a poor script, and as sad as this sounds, part of the blame for that script must go to Reeve. He was enticed into reprising his most famous role for a fourth time when he was promised he could have a hand in script development (the screenplay itself was written by Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal). In addition, Cannon promised to finance any non-Superman film of his choice. The good news is that film was Street Smart, which earned Reeve’s co-star Morgan Freeman his first Oscar nomination.

But while Reeve, who was liberal with a capital L, was a wonderful actor, his writing (at least in the case of this movie) proved to be less than stellar. I don’t want to say that politics in a Superman story couldn’t have worked, but it was handled in the wrong way here. Many have made comparisons between Superman and Jesus Christ. I had no issue with such comparisons in the original movie because they weren’t drilled into our heads. Here, however, it’s a much different case in regards to the way Superman decides to disarm the world with absolutely no response but thunderous cheers by all the countries of the world. Having a film lean closer to one side of the political fence is one thing, but this film does it in such a simplistic manner that the final product is just as mindless as many of the other films Cannon put out.

There are also other scenes, such as Nuclear Man capturing newspaper mogul Lacy Warfield (Mariel Hemingway) for no reason and flying her into space, without a space suit! Even dumber is Clark once again revealing he’s Superman to Lois (Margot Kidder) and later kissing her to wipe her memory of it—again!

Put all this nonsense together, and it’s not surprising that Superman IV was even less successful than its immediate predecessor.

Reeve himself continued acting, with perhaps his most memorable role in his post-Superman years being the period piece The Remains of the Day. He then became a real-life superhero following his horse riding accident in 1995, which rendered him paralyzed. Reeve would later use the incident to assist in research to help others with spinal injuries, a crusade he remained dedicated to until his passing in 2004.

Like Caine, Hackman would emerge from this fiasco to win a second Oscar (in Hackman’s case, for Unforgiven).

Which is worse?

Both of these films officially killed their respective series. But, as Reeve wasn’t the first actor to play the Man of Steel, there have been other actors who have donned the cape since then. Movie-wise, we saw the Man of Steel again in Superman Returns (played by Brandon Routh) and later in Man of Steel and Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (played by Henry Cavill). But like Superman IV, none of these films have managed to achieve the greatness of the original Superman.

We have yet to see a fifth Jaws movie, but we have seen a number of Jaws-esque movies since 1987, such as Deep Blue Sea, the Shark Attack films, and even a remake of Piranha, which had a sequel of its own. So I guess we can say “close enough” there.

As with the third entries of these series, Jaws: The Revenge must be christened the worse of the two. This is because, like the aforementioned I Still Know…, it’s just one scene of stupidity after another. In addition, while certainly flawed, Superman IV still has heart to it (Kidder even has a bigger part this time around); heart that was sorely lacking in all subsequent Superman movies.

Jaws 3-D vs. Superman III

The respective third entries of the Jaws and Superman series were both released in 1983. Neither is held in high regard by fans, and this article goes into which is the worse of the two.

1983 gave us classic films such as Return of the Jedi, Octopussy, Sudden Impact, and the Stephen King triple-punch of Cujo, Christine, and The Dead Zone. Among the year’s films that weren’t so classic were, in an interesting coincidence, the respective third entries of the Jaws and Superman series.

It goes without saying that the first entries of these two series are classic movies. Both Jaws 2 and Superman II were successful as well (although I didn’t much care for the former), which inevitably led to third installments. But those third installments are regarded by most as the point when these two series began to decline creatively.

So, which is worse? Let’s take a look.

Jaws 3-D (1983)

The first two films take place in the fictional town of Amity. This entry attempts a change of pace by setting the action at SeaWorld in Florida. The main characters here are Martin Brody’s grown up sons Mike (Dennis Quaid), who works at SeaWorld, and the visiting Sean (John Putch).

The two brothers are enjoying a weekend at said amusement park with Mike’s colleague/paramour Kay Morgan (Bess Armstrong) and Sean’s new girlfriend Kelly Ann Bukowski (Lea Thompson). But, wouldn’t you know it, a great white shark has shown up in the park to cause trouble. This time, however, the shark has a reason for causing havoc. The park employees manage to catch a smaller shark, which turns out to be the offspring of this film’s monster. The fact that the little shark dies while in the park’s custody doesn’t help matters, either.

As with the previous entries, there are characters who are skeptical about the arrival of such a massive killing machine. Among them is the park’s manager Calvin Bouchard (Louis Gossett Jr., just after he won his Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman). This film has a Quint-like character as well in the form of hunter Phillip FitzRoyce (Simon MacCorkindale).

One thing leads to another and people, including FitzRoyce, get killed, etc. The shark dies again, of course, but in the most ludicrous way possible. During the climatic scene in the park’s underwater control room, the shark smashes through the glass and wiggles its head through the opening to devour whoever it can. But Mike suddenly sees the partially-eaten FitzRoyce in the shark’s mouth, holding a grenade no less. If any ending shouted deus ex machina, this is it.

And what was the point of this shot, anyway?

Superman III (1983)

Business tycoon Ross Webster (Robert Vaughn) blackmails his employee Gus Gorman (Richard Pryor) into using the computer skills that he got out of nowhere to control the world’s oil supply. When the Man of Steel (Christopher Reeve) intervenes, Webster tells Gorman to find some Kryptonite they can use to kill him. Instead, Gorman creates synthetic Kryptonite that turns Superman into a super-jerk. This leads to the film’s most memorable sequence, when Superman splits into two beings, one good and one bad. The two proceed to duke it out before Good Superman triumphs and goes off to battle Webster, now controlling a super-computer that was built from the Arby’s napkin scribbles Gus keeps in his pockets.

When this super-computer produces the correct type of Kryptonite, Gorman turns against Webster and saves Superman. The Man of Steel manages to destroy the super-computer, saving the day.

Which is worse?

Jaws 3-D is basically its two predecessors but relocated to SeaWorld. I’ve read a couple of reviews of the film that said the film’s only saving grace are the early scenes between the Brody brothers and their lady friends. Indeed, the cast itself is pleasant enough. I actually chuckled at the moment when Mike and Kay startle Sean and Kelly as the latter two lovebirds are getting cozy in the water.

It’s once we get into the scenes that were the draw of this picture in the first place that everything turns into déjà vu. The fact that the park employees basically asked for trouble by capturing that little shark in the first place doesn’t help. Hence, it’s actually easier to side with the shark this time around.

Additionally, the film was released during the brief resurrection of 3-D in the early ’80s. But Jaws 3-D is quite dull with or without the 3-D. The previous year saw the release of Friday the 13th Part III, which is quite entertaining even without the 3-D, and like many of the other entries in the Friday the 13th series, it did a terrific job at emphasizing the “fun” in “dumb fun”.

As with Jaws 2, the footage of the shark is excessive here, making it easy to see why it became a punchline in the sequels. The scenes with the tourists seeing body parts as they tour the SeaWorld aquarium lose whatever potential they may have had, because it clearly looks like people walking in front of a cheesy green screen effect.

An interesting side note: the producers of the first two Jaws pictures, Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown, were asked to produce this installment as well. But they wanted to go a different route and make the third film a spoof picture titled Jaws 3, People 0. But Universal wanted another straight scare fest, which led to Zanuck and Brown bowing out. The irony here is that the final picture actually made some people laugh, but for all the wrong reasons.

One could say that Superman III suffers from the opposite problem. It doesn’t rehash anything from its two predecessors, but goes in a more lighthearted direction. That, in itself, is not the problem. After all, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home was more lighthearted than its predecessors, but that movie worked because the humor was never forced and fit naturally into the story.

Superman III‘s attempts at more humor, however, go wrong because they’re just cheap gags and nothing more. Some saw Richard Pryor’s casting as a bad omen for the film, but I thought his bits were the funniest of the film, even if they added nothing to the story. As mentioned earlier, his computer skills come out of nowhere, especially considering that the movie begins with Gorman looking for a job. It was other parts of the movie, such as Webster’s sister Vera (Annie Ross) basically getting Borgified by the super-computer, and the two traffic lights fighting each other that had me going “WTF?” even as I watched the film when it originally came out.

Many fans have stated that the film would have been better if the super-computer had turned out to be Superman’s nemesis Brainiac. I can certainly understand that stance, as we already had Lex Luthor in the previous two films, so why not use another classic Superman villain? Instead, we get a moment that’s literally a video game as Webster attempts to stop Superman with missiles (complete with the same sound effects used by the arcade games of the time).

The moments where Superman is fighting himself are memorable, with Reeve clearly having the time of his life playing a bad guy. By itself, this idea could have conceivably carried the entire movie, had it been done with more care. Instead, all the evil that Superman does is confined to blowing out the Olympic torch, straightening the leaning Tower of Pisa, getting drunk and sleeping with Webster’s assistant Lorelei Ambrosia (Pamela Stephenson). And no, I haven’t forgotten him ripping open that tanker and spilling its oil into the ocean, but the setup is contrived anyway and nothing is done with this plot element (wouldn’t other tankers have come to assist, rather than just having those guys sit there until Good Superman comes by to fix everything?).

Clark’s scenes with his Smallville sweetie Lana Lang (Annette O’Toole) are also pleasant. So it was fitting that O’Toole would later play Clark’s mom in the series Smallville. These Clark/Lana scenes do somewhat mar the touching Superman/Lois scenes of the previous two films, not that it concerned Superman producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind, who were pissed off that Margot Kidder took them to task for firing original Superman director Richard Donner, and punished her by giving Lois only two scenes in this installment.

Although the Salkinds put out the equally misguided Supergirl the following year (Reeve was offered a cameo as Superman in the film, but declined) and then went on to produce a Superboy TV series, Superman III would be the last Superman feature film with the Salkinds’ involvement. This may have been a good thing, were it not how all the subsequent Superman movies (and I don’t mean just Superman IV) turned out. Like the four Star Trek movies with the Next Generation cast, Superman III has some good ideas that are unfortunately outnumbered by the bad.

While both of these films are held in low regard, neither series was finished just yet. Both of them would get their respective fourth entries in 1987, which would drag down their legacies even more (but that’s a story for another time).

Of these two third entries, though, I would say Jaws 3-D is the worse of the two. For all of Superman III‘s faults, it still had the elements that could have potentially made it a great movie. Jaws 3-D, on the other hand, has decent early scenes involving the people we’re supposed to identify with, but nothing exciting emerges from that setup.

Superman III also has the edge in that its computer-related material proved to be the inspiration for the classic comedy Office Space. A bad movie that ends up as the inspiration for a good one is certainly noteworthy.

Jaws and Taxi Driver

My latest Agony Booth work looks at two classics from the 1970s that have more in common than you may think.

In a previous article, I noted that Jaws and Taxi Driver would make an ideal double feature.

The former, based on the Peter Benchley novel of the same name, is about a massive great white shark terrorizing an island community, while the latter is about the mental disintegration of a lonely insomniac. So on the one hand, these two movies, which were released within less than a year of each other, couldn’t be more different. But given that both were released in the middle of the American Film Renaissance of the 1970s, it can be argued that there’s a kinship of sorts between these two classics.

I first thought of this years ago when I read a book (for the life of me, I forget the name) which made comparisons of the films of different directors.

The book stated that in Jaws, Roy Scheider’s Martin Brody reveals that, despite his fear of water, he moved to the island of Amity to raise his kids in what he believed to be a safer environment than his native New York. The Big Apple is also the setting for Taxi Driver which, the author wrote, illustrated the reason why Brody went to Amity.

In addition, both Brody and Robert De Niro’s Travis Bickle are guys who aren’t looking to become public heroes. Brody is simply focused on raising his family and maintaining law and order in Amity, where he’s the chief of police. Bickle is a Vietnam vet who becomes a taxi driver simply as a way of coping with his psychological scars, even after he’s rejected by a beautiful political campaign worker named Betsy (Cybill Shepherd). Although the fact that he takes her to see a porno probably doesn’t help matters.

But both protagonists are compelled to take action as their respective stories go on. Brody must take his aquaphobia head on when the shark that’s been terrorizing Amity strikes again, nearly killing one of his sons. Likewise, Bickle feels obligated to help guide teenager Iris (Jodie Foster) out of the life of prostitution she’s trapped in.

Both men also face obstacles along their new journeys. Brody and oceanographer Matt Hooper (Richard Dreyfuss) have quite a time convincing Amity’s mayor Larry Vaughn (Murray Hamilton) to close the beaches, as doing so will drastically cut into the summer revenue Amity depends on to survive during the winter. But Brody eventually talks Vaughn into paying the huge fee that shark hunter Quint (Robert Shaw) has asked for in order to secure his boat and services towards stopping the shark. However, Quint turns out to have issues himself, which he basically explains to Brody and Hooper by revealing that he was one of the few survivors of the U.S.S. Indianapolis. That ship was sunk by a Japanese submarine toward the end of World War II, and nearly all the crewmen who survived the sinking were left in shark-infested waters for days before help finally arrived to save whoever was left. This mentality is what drives Quint to later burn out his ship’s engine, hence stranding the three of them in the middle of the ocean at the mercy of the shark. The beast manages to kill Quint and tear apart the shark cage Hooper is in before Brody blows it up by shooting an oxygen tank that’s in its mouth.

Bickle must contend with Sport (Harvey Keitel), Iris’s pimp. But while Brody is still able to keep his sanity in dealing with Quint, Bickle briefly loses his mind and attempts to murder presidential candidate Charles Palantine (Leonard Harris), whom Betsy is campaigning for. It’s only after this attempt ends in failure that Bickle goes to Sport’s hideout, where he proceeds to gun down him and others. Bickle is stopped from killing himself when he runs out of ammunition.

However, both ordeals produce the same result: the protagonists unexpectedly become heroes. The shark no longer terrorizes Amity (yes, I’m ignoring the Jaws sequels and I advise you to do the same), while Iris is returned to her family.

Jaws director Steven Spielberg and Taxi Driver director Martin Scorsese first met in the late 1960s as they were beginning to direct movies. By the mid-’70s, Spielberg had attained critical acclaim with Duel and The Sugarland Express, as had Scorsese with Mean Streets and Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore. But both Jaws and Taxi Driver would mark a turning point in their careers, and the making of both films proved difficult.

The production of Jaws was horrendous to say the least, mainly because of the mechanical shark not working properly as the salt water of the Atlantic Ocean (where the boat sequences were shot) kept damaging it. This caused the production to go over budget and over schedule, leading some to think it would flop when it reached cinemas.

During this time, however, some of Spielberg’s friends, including Scorsese, came by the set to give him moral support. These friends even suggested to Spielberg that the shark blow up in the film’s climax. This gave the movie a more exciting ending than the book, in which the shark drowns after being weighted down, and is one reason why this is one of only two movies that I believe are better than the book (for the record, the other is The Godfather).

Scorsese had trouble finding an actress to play Iris. Many young actresses (including Linda Blair and Mariel Hemingway) turned down the role because of the subject matter, before Foster (who previously worked with Scorsese in Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore) agreed to take the part. In addition, Scorsese also had to deal with the MPAA, which initially gave Taxi Driver the dreaded X rating for violence.

During post-production, Scorsese reportedly obtained the desired R rating by de-saturating the blood seen in the final shootout in order to make it less prominent. Spielberg also visited him and helped edit the last 10 minutes of the movie, as well as watched legendary composer Bernard Herrmann score what became his final movie (Scorsese tells a funny story about this on the special features section of the Vertigo DVD). Sadly, Herrmann died just one day after completing his work on the film.

The success of both of these films changed the course of American cinema. Jaws brought about the summer blockbuster phenomenon, while Taxi Driver influenced the world of independent films. Hence, without Jaws, we may not have had The Matrix (I’m ignoring those sequels, too), while without Taxi Driver, we may not have had Clerks (you know, the good Kevin Smith film).

These two films each received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and Best Original Score. Infamously, both were locked out of the Best Director category. This illustrates how the success of these movies became a double-edged sword for their directors for a time.

Jaws began the association Spielberg ended up having with escapist entertainment (which later included Raiders of the Lost Ark and Jurassic Park), while Taxi Driver prompted people to associate Scorsese with more gritty fare (such as Goodfellas and Casino). This is why eyebrows were raised when they were later directing different types of films such as The Color Purple and The Age of Innocence.

But the two directors’ willingness to branch out in this manner is a reason why both are revered as the legends they are now. Heck, as far as I’m concerned, Spielberg and Scorsese have been doing those “experimental movies” that their pal George Lucas has been wasting his breath for years saying he plans to do.

However, both Jaws and Taxi Driver brought about less-than-desirable ramifications, as well.

Morons who didn’t know any better took Jaws as a message that all sharks should be hunted to extinction. As a result, there have been instances of massive shark hunting which has impacted not just the ocean, but humanity as well. Sharks keep the ecosystem in check by, among other things, keeping the zooplankton population down. Without sharks, zooplankton can increase overwhelmingly, making it impossible for people to enjoy activities on the beach. In addition, sharks have exceptional immune systems, which allow them to consume the carcinogens thrown into the ocean without being harmed. Hence, they help keep the oceans clean.

This is another reason why I prefer Jaws as a movie over the book: it clearly states that the shark in the story is not an ordinary shark! To his credit, Benchley, who co-wrote the Jaws screenplay with Carl Gottlieb (who had a small part in the movie), dedicated the rest of his life to preserving sharks before his passing in 2006. He even wrote a non-fiction book about sharks entitled Shark Trouble.

One person who saw Taxi Driver was a disturbed individual named John Hinckley, Jr. His fascination with Foster in that movie led him to take a page from Bickle’s book (including sporting the character’s mohawk) by attempting to assassinate President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981.

Shockingly, Hinckley’s attempt came close to being more successful than Bickle’s. A policeman and a Secret Service agent were both hit, while Press Secretary James Brady was shot in the head. Reagan himself was shot in the chest, but happily would make a complete recovery. The other three victims survived as well, although Brady’s wound left him paralyzed, and his death in 2014 was ruled a homicide as the result of the shooting. Hinckley was eventually found not guilty by reason of insanity. He was institutionalized until September 2016. At present, he lives with his mother in Williamsburg, Virginia.

Some may consider Jaws and Taxi Driver dubious achievements as movies, but there’s no denying the impact they, and by extension their respective directors, ended up having on both cinema and the world.

Double Features

My latest Agony Booth article goes into nice ideas for double features.

Double features are almost as old as cinema itself. Before TV came around, a movie would be preceded by an animated short, a live-action short, a newsreel, and then the main feature. During the Great Depression, cinemas began to give customers two movies for the price of one in order to attract more ticket buyers. These presentations initially began with a low-budget film (the B-movie) before an interlude and then the main feature. This allowed studios that specialized in making B-movies, such as Republic, to become successful.

The revenue this generated soon led to major studios making their own B-movie features. This practice continues to thrive today, only nowadays these movies usually go straight to video (or streaming). Thanks to the advent of home video and later the internet, people can now have double features of all kinds in their own homes. Here now (in no particular order) are 10 great double features you can have at home and why I find them ideal.

Star Wars (1977)/Halloween (1978): These two films respectively rewrote the books on science fiction and horror (for good and bad, according to some) as it didn’t take long for imitators of both movies to flood cinemas in the wake of their successes. As it turns out, the villains in these movies (Darth Vader and Michael Myers) also wear what would become awesome Halloween costumes. Even the musical scores for both movies have become iconic, and rightly so. In addition, the first sequels for each film (The Empire Strikes Back and Halloween II) can make an ideal double feature since they each brought family connections into the narrative, influencing the directions of their respective franchises (again, for good and bad, according to some fans).

Hang ‘Em High (1968)/Night of the Living Dead (1968): By the end of the 1960s, Italian studios were basically churning out westerns and zombie pictures like they were pizzas. While neither of these films were Italian productions, both capitalized on that craze. Hang ‘Em High, Clint Eastwood’s first American-made western after the three he did with Sergio Leone made him a film star, involves a rancher (Eastwood) who survives a lynching and becomes deputized before hunting down the men who tried to kill him. Night of the Living Dead, an inexpensive production made in Pittsburgh, centers on a group of people who become trapped in a deserted house as reanimated corpses begin engulfing the countryside. Both movies have a gritty, harsh tone, and the fact that both premiered just after the shocking murders of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy may have made both films cathartic, if you will, for viewers.

Jaws (1975)/Taxi Driver (1976): I actually plan to go into more detail about these two movies at a later time. Needless to say, however, Jaws, Steven Spielberg’s classic film of a shark terrorizing an island community, set the bar when it came to blockbusters, while Taxi Driver, Martin Scorsese’s classic picture about a loner (Robert De Niro) who ends up committing terrifying acts, did the same for independent films. One could also say they ended up coloring the public’s perceptions of their respective directors.

High Noon (1952)/Rio Bravo (1959): Two classic westerns released during the genre’s heyday. The former, in which Gary Cooper ends up facing bad guys alone when nobody is willing to assist him, was viewed as a critique of McCarthyism for the manner in which Cooper does the honorable thing. The latter, in which John Wayne fights bad guys with loyal men at his side, was viewed as a counterpoint to that argument, as Wayne’s character doesn’t spend much of the movie asking for assistance. Wayne even called High Noon “un-American”, which is what led to him and director Howard Hawks making Bravo. Regardless of political views, today both movies are rightfully embraced as masterpieces.

The NeverEnding Story (1984)/Labyrinth (1986): Both of these films involve young people who must enter a world they know from a book in order to save lives. NeverEnding Story centers on a lonely boy (Barret Oliver) reading a fantasy book, and as he reaches the end, he realizes that he’s the only one who can save a not-so-fictional land from destruction. Labyrinth stars then-unknown Jennifer Connelly as a fantasy-loving teenager who just wants to live in her own fantasy world and regrets her wish that her infant brother be taken away by the Goblin King (the late, great David Bowie), a character from the play she’s reading. She must then enter that fantasy world to save her brother, dealing with the Goblin King and his minions (created by the late, great Jim Henson). One could also say that both movies make a great argument for why reading is good.

Ghostbusters (1984)/Beetlejuice (1988): Two comedy classics involving ghosts. Ghostbusters centers on four men (Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, and the late Harold Ramis) who manage to make a lucrative business out of capturing ghosts. In lesser hands, Beetlejuice could have been just a Ghostbusters knock-off, but Tim Burton stirs things up with his film by making ghosts the main characters. In that film, a couple (Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis) have recently died and soon enlist the aid of the title character (Michael Keaton) to rid their home of its new owners, an act that they come to regret, as he has a reputation for wrecking havoc among both the living and the dead. Add the fact that both of these movies are hilarious and you have a great double feature.

The Terminator (1984)/Back to the Future (1985): Two time travel stories released in consecutive years. The first, which involves a murderous cyborg (Arnold Schwarzenegger) sent back through time to change history by killing a woman (Linda Hamilton) before she can give birth to the man who will save humanity, was a nerve-jolting thriller, while the second, in which a teenager (Michael J. Fox) accidentally goes back in time thanks to a DeLorean his scientist friend (Christopher Lloyd) has modified, was a comedy. Both films also end up giving nice messages about the importance of believing in yourself and creating your own destiny.

Escape from New York (1981)/Blade Runner (1982): Both of these are science fiction films which show a near future with a dark, apocalyptic outlook that continues to influence the science fiction genre to this day. Escape from New York, which takes place in 1997, involves a criminal (Kurt Russell) being drafted into rescuing the President of the United States (Donald Pleasence) by going into the title city (which is now a maximum security prison), where Air Force One crashed and the president was kidnapped by the dangerous criminals who now inhabit the city. Blade Runner involves a police detective (Harrison Ford) who must go through 2019 Los Angeles to terminate dangerous androids (Rutger Hauer, Daryl Hannah, Joanna Cassidy, and Brion James) who have arrived on Earth (where androids are banned) after violently escaping from an outer space colony (three more years to go as of this writing—let’s see if those colonies come about by then). Another interesting contrast is that Escape contains criticism of police and police actions (one of the characters in the film refers to the U.S. as a fascist state), while Ford’s character in Blade Runner spends much of the movie questioning himself and his actions, especially when he realizes his opponents aren’t as evil as society and his superiors have made them out to be.

Ray (2004)/Walk the Line (2005): Two biopics about music legends. Ray depicts the rise of Ray Charles (a brilliant, Oscar-winning Jamie Foxx) while Walk the Line does the same with music duo Johnny and June Carter Cash (Joaquin Phoenix and a brilliant, Oscar-winning Reese Witherspoon). Both movies do a fine job illustrating the trials and tribulations these artists went through (some of which were of their own making) as they fulfilled their dreams of making music, and thus, ensuring their places in history. Interestingly, both Charles and the Cashes passed away shortly before these films premiered, although both movies received their blessing.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)/Clue (1985): Rocky Horror (which, I must confess, I never really liked, but can understand why many do) is a musical-science fiction-comedy with not-so-subtle nods to Frankenstein, while Clue is a mystery-comedy based on the Parker Brothers board game of the same name. However, both films not only take place in mansions on dark and stormy nights, but both also feature memorable roles for Tim Curry. In Rocky Horror, he plays the doctor who was once described by Us magazine as “a bi-sexual Beetlejuice”, while in Clue, he plays a butler who ends up setting an evening of murder into motion after he invites several people over for dinner. In addition, both movies didn’t get much initial notice when they were released, but today have huge followings as well as midnight showings with audience members performing the action as it plays on screen.

HONORABLE MENTION: It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown (1966)/Garfield’s Halloween Adventure (1985): As it’s Halloween, it seems appropriate to mention these two animated specials, which may be the most famous of all Halloween cartoons. In the first, Linus waits for the arrival of the Santa Claus-esque Great Pumpkin, while Charlie Brown ends up getting only rocks while trick-or-treating and Snoopy hunts for the Red Baron. In the second, Garfield enlists his dog sidekick Odie to go trick-or-treating with him (both dress up as pirates) in order to get more candy for himself, only for both to get caught up in a genuine ghost story (involving—what else?—pirates, which today reminds me a little of the setting of John Carpenter’s The Fog). The Garfield special actually bests Great Pumpkin in terms of having moments that make you jump, but both specials have a great deal of heart, making them the perfect Halloween treats for all ages.

Summer blockbusters

My latest Agony Booth work looks at the summer blockbuster phenomenon.

Another summer is here, and in the movie world, that means summer blockbusters: the escapist, big-budget films that over the decades have become regarded as mostly fluff. One of the first books I ever read that talked about the summer blockbuster phenomenon was Peter Biskind’s Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, which primarily looked at the rise of numerous American filmmakers during the 1970s, such as Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and Martin Scorsese.

While the book is certainly informative, it makes a rather simplistic argument that I’ve heard repeated all too often in the ensuing years. Biskind states that the viability of such movies as The Godfather slowly gave way to what he called lesser films such as Star Wars by the decade’s end. The author specifically notes Jaws as the turning point for this. (Though, it’s interesting to note the production of that film was over-budget and over schedule, so there was a good chance that it might have flopped. If so, Duel, Spielberg’s first film, would be seen today as a glimpse of what might have been, rather than the start of a great career.)

As it turns out, Jaws, released on June 20, 1975, was the opposite of a flop. It became the highest-grossing movie of all time, made Spielberg an A-list director, and deservedly won Oscars for sound, editing, and John Williams’ classic score. It also officially kicked off the era of big-budget escapism that Hollywood unleashes on us each summer.

Putting aside the fact that there were blockbusters before Jaws (such as the James Bond films), Biskind’s book states that this shift led to other directors somehow losing their importance, as they were unable or unwilling to make films that would earn as much money as Jaws.

In addition, in this pre-Internet, pre-home-video era, Jaws actually generated positive word of mouth before its June 20 opening thanks to preview screenings in several cities, which led to its record-breaking grosses once it hit theaters nationally. These grosses became the primary focus for Hollywood when it came to summer blockbusters. It didn’t matter if the movie itself was good or not; as long as it made a crapload of money out of the gate, it was considered successful.

Star Wars was released two years after Jaws, and the even greater success of that film cemented Hollywood’s blockbuster obsession. Star Wars not only won seven Oscars (including one for its John Williams score), but as of this writing, has spawned six sequels (compared to just three for Jaws).

George Lucas’s film also brought something else to the table: merchandising. It wasn’t the first movie or TV show to have tie-in merchandise, but Star Wars brought it to another level, to the extent that the Star Wars action figures ended up making more money than the movies themselves. Plus the fact that, due to the initial indifference of everyone Lucas pitched Star Wars to before filming began, he was able to keep all the merchandising rights for himself. None of the countless Star Wars imitators that have come along in the years since have had that same impact (as those toy stores that were inundated with worthless Battlefield Earth action figures can tell you).

But I find Biskind’s argument that Jaws, and later Star Wars, ruined movies to be silly at the very least. Another argument I found on this blog referred to an article once written in GQ that stated Hollywood’s blockbuster fixation can actually be credited to Top Gun.

As anyone who’s seen that film knows, while it’s not science fiction, it certainly isn’t realistic either. While Top Gun supposedly led many guys to enlist in the Navy, the movie itself has scenes that look like they were meant to be put in a video game (so it’s no surprise that there would Top Gun games in arcades later on).

In addition, the music videos for the film’s songs “Take My Breath Away” (which won the Best Original Song Oscar that year) and “Danger Zone” also simply showed extended segments from the film itself, which made one wonder if they were just watching the film again rather than just clips of it. Hence, rather than the action figures that Star Wars gave us, Top Gun gave us moments that were specifically designed to be played on MTV.

Top Gun was certainly not the first dumb summer blockbuster. For instance, the original Friday the 13th came out six years earlier and was the second biggest moneymaker of summer 1980 (beaten only by The Empire Strikes Back). But unlike Friday the 13th, Top Gun had a big star in Tom Cruise, in the midst of his ‘80s heyday. As a result, many blockbusters in ensuing summers have had A-list stars such as (to name a now-infamous example) Nicolas Cage, who scored with The Rock, Face/Off, National Treasure, and Con Air before becoming desperate enough to take any role that came his way (thanks to his enormous spending, which reportedly included purchasing an island). So while Jaws is credited with ushering in the summer blockbuster, Top Gun ushered in the dumb summer blockbuster.

This is not to say all blockbusters since then have been dumb. Indeed, Top Gun came out in 1986, at the same time as classics such as Aliens and The Fly. But that previously linked article also points to two films that came out a decade after Top Gun: Twister and Independence Day. Both those films, like Top Gun, featured popular stars and plenty of moments that made you go "WTF?"

The success of both those films showed that summer blockbusters were perfect for stars who were either on the A-list or being groomed for it. For instance, Twister star Helen Hunt already had the TV success of Mad About You to her name and would win an Oscar a short time later for As Good As It Gets. A later, similarly dumb summer film, The Mummy, had then-up and coming Brendan Fraser and future Oscar winner Rachel Weisz in its cast.

Ironically, both Spielberg and Lucas recently expressed concern with how the film industry is on the cusp of imploding because of this ongoing focus on bigger and bigger event films. I find this concern somewhat ironic, considering how the Star Wars prequels turned out.

This brings me to last summer’s biggest hit, Jurassic World. This was arguably worse than the previous two sequels to Jurassic Park. Chris Pratt taming velociraptors was certainly bullshit (yes, friends, you too can make velociraptors your bitches!), but even more so was Bryce Dallas Howard outrunning a T-Rex in high heels, not to mention the movie’s suggestion that all that’s needed to stop a couple from heading to divorce court is for their kids to come within inches of becoming dino chow. Interestingly, Twister also kept its two leads from getting divorced, in this case by having them drive right into tornadoes.

But like The Force Awakens, Jurassic World’s biggest sin is that it’s essentially a retelling of the first movie, even though it acknowledges the events of that previous film. So the great success of both of these movies makes me wonder if a new kind of blockbuster is coming: one that acknowledges its legendary predecessor, and pisses all over it anyway.

Granted, these two films weren’t the first sequels to do that (Alien 3, anyone?), but they seem to have become the most successful, which means such sequels could become the norm rather than the exception. Still, both movies were entertaining, which is more than can be said for other would-be blockbusters that have flopped, such as Speed 2: Cruise Control or The Lone Ranger. This highlights what is probably a key reason why summer blockbusters continue to thrive: Plot and even coherency can be rendered secondary if the film itself has enough kinetic energy to keep the audience awake for a couple of hours.

But to read Biskind’s book, it sounds like he’s blaming Star Wars for the fact that Coppola has been reduced to directing has-beens like Val Kilmer in films that only play in a fraction of the theaters The Godfather did. In Coppola’s case, his declining clout should really be attributed to filing for bankruptcy in the ‘80s due to all the money he spent making Apocalypse Now (which Lucas originally had a hand in), and his film One from the Heart flopping at the box office.

Just because movies without special effects and action don’t get top priority with some studio executives doesn’t mean that these sorts of films have no chance of becoming appreciated, let alone being made. In other words, while we may question why some films enjoy financial success, there’s always been room for all kinds of films. Those who insist otherwise are basically wasting their breath, as there have been signs of this trend letting up.

But, honestly, there have always been escapist films that have set the bar in terms of financial success. If Jaws did anything different in that regard, it made summer the fashionable time for such movies to be released. Likewise, Star Wars simply brought toys into the equation as no movie did before or since. These two films are still examples of how summer blockbusters can be every bit as smart as straight dramatic, non-blockbuster movies. Hollywood, as is often the case, simply focuses on the rewards those two movies brought rather than the ingredients that led to those lucrative results.