This week we decided to take in some of the Fourth of July celebrations going on in the area. There also wasn’t anything really worth seeing at the drive-in, which is unusual for a July weekend. The drive-in movie reviews will be back next week. For now, try something classic.

If there is one thing Hollywood knows for sure it is that people love to be scared. To accommodate the American public’s insatiable need to be terrified, Hollywood created the “Boo!” horror genre. The “Boo!” horror genre is when the boogeyman in the movie suddenly rounds the corner and appears out of the darkness. The favorite vehicles of the “Boo!” movie genre are mirrors, refrigerator doors, and light switches. The effect always works and people always jump in their seats. But the whole concept got old really fast.

Prior to Steven Spielberg’s mega-hit Jaws in 1975, the undisputed king of horror was Alfred Hitchcock. But Hitch didn’t use the tried and true “Boo!” horror element. Oh sure, some of Hitch’s scenes reached out and suddenly tried to grab you, but his primary weapon was suspense. Hitch builds up such suspense in his movies that you could cut it with a knife. By the time a Hitchcock movie reaches its climax, the audience is jumping at everything. That is the genius of Hitchcock.

But Alfred Hitchcock wasn’t interested in horror as most of Hollywood knew it. Hitchcock’s boogeymen were real people that could not function properly in a normal society. It wasn’t until Jaws came out in 1975 that someone finally meshed the suspenseful genius of Hitchcock with the visual excitement of a Hollywood boogeyman story. Jaws started something that most of us movie connoisseurs are grateful for. Jaws gave us the sheer terror without the “Boo!” factor and that is why Jaws remains a classic to this day.

The funny thing about Jaws is that Steven Spielberg wanted to make the movie 90 minutes of “Boo!” after “Boo!”. But when Bruce the mechanical shark showed no interest in cooperating, Spielberg had to get creative. He developed scenes where you just knew the shark was there, but you never see it. The opening scene is a classic example. She swims out to the buoy, gets a little love tug from Bruce, and then she goes for a ride. A couple seconds later, she is gone. But it wasn’t Bruce doing the tugging. It was Spielberg himself. That is the kind of resourceful ingenuity that helped to make Jaws one of the greatest horror movies of all time.

Spielberg decided that if he couldn’t show his shark, he would create camera angles and do camera tricks that would knock our socks off. Anyone who knows anything about movies can instantly identify the “Jaws close-up.” This is when the main character stays where he is, but the scenery behind him rapidly pulls back. It was pure genius and, once again, it was done on the fly and completely improvised by Spielberg.

If you spend time watching horror from around the world, you can start to see just how important suspense really is. Many Korean, Japanese, and French horror movies rely almost exclusively on the accumulation of suspense to create horror. The Japanese have become so good at it that I am always hesitant to watch a Japanese horror movie because you just never know what you are going to get. You could be soiling your shorts five minutes into the movie, or you may need de-fib stat when the movie ends. That is real horror.

In Jaws, Spielberg was dealt a limited hand that he played beautifully. When you add in gripping performances by Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfuss – then you have a masterpiece. Hell, even Murray Hamilton’s performance as the dimwitted mayor was premium stuff. It did not take me long to hate Mayor Vaughn and I was really hoping that the Mayor and Bruce would meet at some point in the movie.

Great acting, a strong script, and a brilliant director who was forced to improvise his way into creating a whole new genre in horror combine to make Jaws one of the best movies ever made. Jaws paved the way for movies such as Halloween, Alien, and even The Blair Witch Project. The idea that the story and the suspense are more important than seeing the monster for 90 minutes was revolutionary in 1975. But now, it is just the way that good horror movies are made.

If you haven’t seen Jaws yet, then do so. It isn’t just a movie; it’s an experience.

Rating: Four out of five stars.

George N Root III spends his summers at the Sunset Drive-in because it isn’t anywhere near a large body of water. His reviews appear every Sunday and are always worth a read!

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