Andrew Robinson
The summer blockbuster is now a yearly thing. Jurassic World, Wonder Woman, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Transformers. The list goes on and on. However, it wasn’t until the summer of 1975 that summers became all about the movies. That year featured the release of Jaws.
Full disclosure, this reviewer isn’t a fan of Jaws. He appreciates the novelty of the film and what it brought to the horror genre, but he simply doesn’t find it to be scary or particularly engaging. Still, however, it is clear that the film is the quintessential summer blockbuster.
Despite the PG rating, Jaws has it all. Nudity? A tad. Violence and gore? All day. Horror? Yep. If released today, Jaws would be a hard PG-13 at best. In 1975, it was a revolutionary film for horror lovers.
A good summer blockbuster usually needs a few things to be successful. Monsters/creatures, some scares, young love, and a whole lotta action. Jaws set the bar way back in 1975, and grossed roughly $470 million wordwide as a result. The shark itself is a 25-foot behemoth, satisfying a blockbuster’s need for a monster. The scares are frequent – the dog scene and shark-jump scene come to mind. As for young love, well, there’s a skinny-dipping scene. As with many horror movies, the teenagers’ quest for sex ends gruesomely. And, finally, there’s action. Multiple deaths, said jumping shark, and the pursuit of that monstrosity makes for a movie filled with action, action, and more action.
Without Jaws, summer blockbusters likely wouldn’t exist as they do today. It would be a fair thought, after all, that people wouldn’t be huge movie watchers in the nice weather of the summer. However, the massive success of Jaws changed that line of thinking. People like having movies to go to and talk about in the summer – the warm weather and possibility of vacations doesn’t deter them from that.
Jaws made all of the summer blockbusters that us dorks love possible. So, no matter how one feels about the film itself, Jaws is revolutionary and the quintessential summer blockbuster.
