This movie is like "The Edge" and "Cujo", which are two favorites of mine. What they offer us, are horror stories grounded in our reality. The terror you feel in that particular sub-genre, is altogether different from a fear of the supernatural. If you can classify the monsters into genus and species, they cease to be unknown and become less frightening.
I'm still willing to bet that all our knowledge and reason, evaporates in close proximity to a predator. Survival instincts override intellect, and mortal danger gives flight to logic. As human beings, we are afraid of numerous things, but most of us are safe from the beasts in the wilderness. It is only through stories like this one, that we get a chance to experience the emotions from our past.
Classic Movie Trailers – Jaws (1975)
If you're by a window, I'd like you to take a moment to look out of it. If you're outside, I'd like you to stop reading and scan the space around you. Just take a few minutes to appreciate your environment. Pay attention to what you see, instead of taking it for granted.
Even though I have no idea where you currently are, I can say that I know something about where you live. If you're reading this text on a computer, laptop, tablet or mobile device, you're probably in what we call a "developed country". That's a more important term than you may realize, and it means a lot more than what they teach us in class. Consider the fact that even if you're miles from anyone else, there are signs of civilization, everywhere you look.
You could be in a high rise building or a log cabin. You be on farmland, or in a dense, urban area. There are cars or tractors, roads or trails, man-made clearings or clustered buildings. We have altered the landscape wherever we have trod, and overrun any practically habitable space. Species are endangered due to our efforts, to shrink their territory down to nothing at all.
So now, the animals are in steel cages. The only range they have left, is in your local zoo. We should be thrilled to see deer, jackal and coyote. Anything that poses a greater threat has been run out of town.
Have you ever had to flee from a bear in your life? Have you ever rushed into your car, to escape the gaze of a lion? We are the apex of apex predators, and we have gained that status by invalidating natural selection. There is nothing mighty about the human mind and body; our claim to fame has always been our wanton destruction.
Believe me, guns have little to do with our dominance. The chainsaw is a much more terrible weapon. Tanks have claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands, but bulldozers have done a lot worse. When you change the environment you change the odds, and we have skewed everything to benefit ourselves.
Still, there are pockets of wildlife here and there. Through the kindness of our hearts, we have spared some land for our enemies. The animal kingdom was a vast and diverse place, but then we lead the fauna to their trail of tears. The Unrecorded War was colder than you may realize; we found that starving them was better than shooting.
As devastating as our behavior has been, we haven't come close to conquering the globe. You may think that we have dominion over all, but that's because you're looking at the surface. All you have to do is dive a little deeper, to reconnect with dread and uncertainty. There are no roads beneath the waves, and the water brings ruin to our machines.
When we are submerged, we are still prey. The safety of civilization is back on land. In the instant that we dare to invade the ocean, our prowess and skills are absolutely worthless. I would only go while inside a submarine; anything else is reckless, or attempted suicide.
If you stop and consider the ultimate result of our efforts, you'll see that we won't win the end game. The sea level rises, right along with the temperature, and it brings natural checks and balances to our race. When every land is an island, our lives are finished, and the jaws of death will be something we've studied and categorized.
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See "Jaws" on Netflix!
Next Week: "Cape Fear".
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