Editorials
The 5 Definitive Killer Shark Movies You Need To Watch
Earlier this year, I began putting together a list of EVERY shark movie ever made for a project I was working on, and what I quickly realized was that there are A LOT of shark movies out there. What I also realized was that though the killer shark sub-genre may be massive, there aren’t actually all that many movies on that Megalodon-sized list that I would recommend watching.
In the wake of Jaws, THE definitive shark movie, sharks have mostly been used as B-movie monsters for cheap ripoffs and silly Syfy fare such as Sharktopus and the weirdly popular Sharknado franchise (the fifth installment is headed our way this summer). Sure, those computer-generated creature features may be fun to watch (provided you’ve got ample amounts of alcohol to consume), but they’ve done near-irreparable damage to the sub-genre as a whole.
But all hope is not lost, as the killer shark movie seems to be making a comeback.
This weekend, the Mandy Moore-starring 47 Meters Down (formerly In the Deep) is arriving in theaters after a planned direct-to-video release, and the mega-budget adaptation of Meg, starring Jason Statham, is on its way next summer. And then there’s the upcoming Cage Dive, which was recently re-branded to be part of the Open Water franchise…. perhaps it’s not too late to make sharks scary again after all.
So, which shark movies from both the distant and recent past are actually worth watching? There are only five that I consider to be the cream of the crop of this troubled sub-genre…
*These are in release date order, not ranked order!*
1) JAWS
Of course, the shark movie that both did it first and did it best was Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, released to such massive success in the summer of 1975 that the film is widely considered to have paved the way for the summer blockbuster as we know it today. One of the greatest films of all time, Jaws is as perfect as horror movies can possibly get, loaded with fun characters, incredible dialogue, a host of memorable moments and some of the most genuinely terrifying scenes in the genre’s history. It’s pretty safe to say that no shark movie will ever dethrone Jaws, which is still keeping people out of the water over 40 years after its initial release.
The sequels, well, there’s a reason we don’t often talk about them.
2) DEEP BLUE SEA
There are scary shark movies and there are just plain fun ones, and Deep Blue Sea falls into the latter category. In fact, as far as fun shark movies are concerned, it’s to date the reigning king. Released in 1999 and directed by Renny Harlin, Deep Blue Sea paved the way for all of the goofy shark movies that Syfy has been unloading in recent years, but it’s home to a level of genuine fun that’s just not found in those purposely-stupid creature features – the network only wishes it could make a movie as entertaining as this one. It’s big and dumb in the best of ways, and one of course can’t talk about Deep Blue Sea without mentioning Samuel L. Jackson’s epic death scene – a jump scare so effective that it even made Stephen King scream aloud!
3) OPEN WATER
Using real sharks and a minimalist approach to the sub-genre, director Chris Kentis struck killer shark gold with Open Water, released in 2003. The based-on-true-events film, centered on two scuba divers who get stranded in the water and surrounded by hungry sharks, effectively managed to make the deep sea predators as scary as Jaws did decades prior. It’s what you don’t see in Open Water that makes the film so terrifying, as it’s raw, real and uncomfortably immersive. Even Roger Ebert praised the film, writing that “it gets under your defenses and sidesteps the ‘it’s only a movie’ reflex and creates a visceral feeling that might as well be real.”
47 Meters Down clearly owes a debt to Open Water, as does the next film on our list…
4) THE REEF
Essentially the Australian answer to Open Water, director Andrew Traucki’s 2010 film The Reef may actually be the superior of the two films. Also based on true events, the Aussie flick similarly strands a group of friends in shark-infested waters; and like Kentis did with Open Water, Traucki employed real sharks and a minimalist filmmaking style to craft a terrifying experience sure to make you think twice about ever stepping foot in the water again. The attack scenes are deeply unnerving, and the spans of time in between attacks are nail-bitingly suspenseful.
The Reef makes for the perfect double feature with Open Water.
5) THE SHALLOWS
A perfect blend of fun, Deep Blue Sea-style thrills and terrifying, Open Water-esque chills, Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows is a standout shark attack film that I’ve gone on record as naming the best of its kind since Jaws. The villainous shark, despite being 100% computer-generated, looks so damn good that I didn’t even realize it was CGI while watching the movie, and Blake Lively makes for a badass and likable horror heroin as the unlucky surfer stranded just offshore. For me, The Shallows washed away the bad taste of shark-infested tornadoes and all the other silliness that Syfy has conjured up in recent years, (hopefully) kick-starting a whole new wave of shark movies that take the finned menaces a bit more seriously.
Any other shark films that you feel should be on this list? Let us know!
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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