Jaws

“The 3 types of terror:

 The Gross-out: the sight of a severed head tumbling down a flight of stairs, it's when the lights go out and something green and slimy splatters against your arm.

 The Horror: the unnatural, spiders the size of bears, the dead waking up and walking around, it's when the lights go out and something with claws grabs you by the arm.

And the last and worse one: Terror, when you come home and notice everything you own had been taken away and replaced by an exact substitute. It's when the lights go out and you feel something behind you, you hear it, you feel its breath against your ear, but when you turn around, there's nothing there...”

-Stephen King

Fear is a feeling that accompanies humans throughout the course of their life. Whether they are grounded fears of entirely irrational, we each have a scenario that we can think of that will make us shiver. For some of us, seeing these fears unfold in a story or creating stories around these terrifying scenarios becomes an entertaining thrill. While they can be entertaining, how can horror teach us about our own (often ungrounded) fears? Can it shape the way we see the real world and make fictional monsters creep in to our daily lives? What are some of the consequences of creating blockbuster movies that play on our implicit

In horror, the crucial element to terrifying an audience is anticipation and set up. In Jaws, this is done from the very first minutes of the film. In the video above, we witness the first attack by the shark. However, we are given no clues as to what it is that kills Chrissie: there is no fin and no silhouette like in scenes later in the movie to give us any clue that we are dealing with a shark. To emphasize the violence of the attack, the scene takes place on quiet beach at dawn. The water is glassy, the bay is peaceful and the mood is light with the excitement of the couple to go swimming. All of these elements add to the shock of the sudden violence. We, as the audience, are the only ones privy to the knowledge that danger looms below. This is done through the perspective of the attacker: the silhouette of the young woman from below getting closer and closer tells us someone or something is watching. This creates a feeling of helplessness as the victim splashes happily while we want to warn her. This feeling of vulnerability is another crucial element to creating fear. Spielberg heightens this with a quiet and peaceful ending of the scene, identical to the beginning. This lack of consequence and reaction adds to the insidious nature of the attack: we know there is a monster in the water, but we cannot see it before it attacks, warn those in the water or find clues to prove its existence after.

With it's success, Jaws set the stage for a terrifying, aggressive and vengeful vision of the Great White shark and other species. Jaws sent a clear message:

1. Sharks seek humans out with the intention of attacking and killing them. They will pursue you and attack you repeatedly
2. They come from the dark depths below, stalking unsuspecting humans stealthily

In these posters, notice the repetitive scene of either a grey black fin on a glassy, blue ocean surface or white, wide jaws come from below to grab the legs of an unsuspecting (often female) victim. The grey/blue/black color scheme is contrasted by a title in bold sickly green or blood red letters. In both cases, the message is clear: danger lurks in the depths, sharks are out to get us.

What makes the following images so disturbing is not the repetitive nature of the image or the similarity with the previous adult movie posters but rather the fact that 3 out of the 4 images come from children's movies (top left, highlighted in green is from an adult movie) yet they all share such similar characteristics, it is hard to tell which scene is meant for adults and which for young children.

However, their similarities go much further beyond simply the teeth and the predators. In all of these scenes, we can see similarities in color and in the origins of the danger. Each predator comes from the dark murky depths below. Rather than being introduced to us as an animal, the attacker is a set of pearly white, razor sharp teeth with small, dark, unfeeling eyes that jets out from the dark depths below. Just like the menacing shark horror movie posters, these scenes rely on dark blues and grays and sickly greens that contrast with the red gums of the attacker or the blood of the victims. Just by seeing this colors, the audience is already uneasy, we know danger is lurking. What makes this pattern all the more insidious is that it begs the question: are we born afraid of apex predators, the open ocean and the dark, depths or are we programmed to resent them from a young age?

As you watch the following videos, thee are a few things to keep in mind:

• Were you scared? If so, why? What made you sense the danger?
• What are the similarities between the scenes? Differences? How does each predator make its appearance
• How do film makers create fear? Do they choose a certain camera perspective/angle? Music? Color? Juxtaposition?

In shark movies, we see dozens of swimmers, divers and beach goers dragged under the surface in the span of a few days or weeks. But how common are such events, or shark attacks in general really? The answer is: they're not. The Florida Museum has compiled a