If you’ve been paying attention to horror news this week, you may know that Universal announce the Blu-Ray releases of all three Jaws sequels (Jaws 2 fans unite!). Columbia Pictures also released a terrifying new still from the new Blake Lively thriller The Shallows. If you’re a regular reader of my posts, you may know that I’m a huge fan of aquatic horror (it’s my favorite sub-genre after slashers), so I’m particularly excited about all of this news. It may be is too early to declare this a renaissance for the killer shark film, but it does make me hopeful that if the Jaws sequels sell well and The Shallows can turn into the sleeper hit of the summer (it won’t be a blockbuster, but Columbia must have a lot of confidence in it to be giving it a theatrical release it in the heart of summer), then we may see more killer shark movies getting released in the future.
Once in a while, a really good killer shark movie will come along. After Jaws was released in 1975, it was followed by a slew of copycats with films like Piranha and Orca. The 80s saw a lack of shark films after Jaws fatigue set in with Jaws 3-D and Jaws: The Revenge (slashers became the name of the game with mainstream horror releases at that time). Sharks made a return in the 90s with films like Deep Blue Sea and (sort of) the Shark Attack films. In the 2000s we saw Open Water make sharks terrifying again before SyFy came around in the 2010s with films like Sharknado, Sharktopus and Jersey Shore Shark Attack, making jokes of the animals.
With a serious shark film getting released in the summer and Universal finally (finally) releasing the Jaws sequels on Blu-Ray (Jaws 2 is amazing. I don’t care what anyone says), it seems like the perfect time for the ocean’s deadliest predator to make a return to mainstream horror and be scary again. Let’s face it, sharks are terrifying, and the fact that they’ve become a joke in Hollywood is fairly depressing. We must now rely on Jaume Collet-Serra to revive the sub-genre and make it relevant in the eyes of the audience. No pressure though, Mr. Collet-Serra.
The issue with many killer shark films is that it becomes difficult to keep coming up with reasons for the characters to go back in the water. The most recent well-reviewed killer shark films Open Water and The Reef fixed this problem by having their characters stranded in the middle of the ocean, and the Australian film Bait 3D trapped its characters in a flooded grocery store after a tsunami. The Shallows will follow this trend by having Blake Lively stranded on a rock 200 yards from shore.
It’s understandable that major studios are afraid to dip back into killer shark territory. The aforementioned SyFy films have most likely scared them into thinking they won’t make any money (thanks, Syfy). If they would just give a script a chance, then a talented director could really make a fantastic killer shark movie. There really isn’t much more that needs to be said on the subject. Basically, I’m just tired of sharks being the butt of whatever joke Hollywood is making. Maybe some big wig will read this and thing “Hey, maybe that guy is right. Let’s finance a killer shark movie!” This is highly unlikely, but a man can dream, can’t he?
What are your thoughts on killer shark movies? Do you feel that it will be impossible to make them scary again? Or does the right movie need to be made? Will moviegoers flock to the theater to see a horror movie about a shark even in a post-Sharknado world? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below or shoot me a Tweet!