It's Scary How Hard You Can Laugh

After getting home last evening I was watching a guilty pleasure movie. A movie so bad that it's good. A movie that is just screaming for comments and insults and mayhem. A movie that instills confidence in the folks over in Hollywood and faith that whatever else, they are interested in putting out quality films that will stand the test of time. What movie would that be? Why it would be "Jaws: The Revenge". I remember the day way back when, my dad came home one evening and said that they were going to be releasing "Jaws '87". At the time I didn't know what he meant. Later on I came to realize it wasn't the 87th film of the series but rather the year the film was coming out.

At this point I hadn't seen any of the films other than the first. I hadn't seen Jaws Meets Jason....er... "Jaws 2" which was basically a teen slasher film set on sail boats in the middle of the ocean with Roy Schieder acting like Abraham Van Helsing. And I vaguely remembered "Jaws 3" which was set in Sea World down in Florida. Another rather forgetable film. When "Jaws: The Revenge" was just coming to video, I decided to catch up with the series and get set to go on. I should have left things where they lay.

So part 4 opens with a narration, (if you're watching the television version) which explains how some forces of nature are just beyond explination. It's almost like a subliminal comment on how bad some sequels can get. We go straight into establishing that Roy Scheider will not be seen, since he's died of a heart attack. His youngest son is now a deputy on the island and while out on duty, is eaten by a shark. Those darn Brodys, they can never catch a break. So now we're down to two original Brodys. Michael and his mother. In "Jaws 3" he was a maintenance tech at Sea World. Here he is suddenly a marine biologist in the Bahamas who hangs out with Mario Van Peebles and pilot Michael Caine (slumming for a paycheck after a fresh Oscar win no less!).

So after spending a bit of time explaining how the Bahamas are free of Great White Sharks and how they could never be there... lo and behold, one arrives in no time flat. And not just any shark. The one from Amity arrives to do some munching. How inane can you get? The beauty of this movie is that it is a sharp contrast to the original. In the original they couldn't get the mechanical shark to move appropriately so they edited around it. Here the shark worked perfect, so you get to see tons of shark shots. By the end, there's no fear left since nothing is left to our imagination other than wondering why we're still sitting and watching the film.

At points you can almost see the hole at the bottom of the shark whereby it was controlled and manuevered. Some of my favorite scenes in this movie include the various slow motion montages that would make Michael Bay proud. People being eaten in slow motion, slow motion reaction shots, slow motion plot. It all works out so well. Wooden dialogue that would make George Lucas blush with envy. For a 'horror' film, I've never realized just how hard you can laugh.