Table of contents for #9: Shark Movie Mania in RUE MORGUE

WHEN I WAS A PRETEEN, I WOULD HAVE DEVOURED A BOOK LIKE THIS. BUT IT COULDN’T HAVE EXISTED BACK THEN, since I’m a child of the Jaws era, and almost none of the movies covered within these pages had been made yet. I was, nonetheless, rabidly into sharks, fascinated by these primordial killers of the deep – so of course, I wanted to see Jaws very badly. Standing in the way was that pesky “May be too intense for younger children” warning in the ads, and my father went to see it on his own to scope out its suitability. He came back saying it probably wouldn’t damage my fragile eight-year-old psyche too much, though I didn’t wind up seeing the film until a few years later, on one of…

JAWS ISN’T JUST ONE OF THE BIGGEST HORROR MOVIES OF ALL TIME, IT’S ONE OF THE BIGGEST MOVIES OF ALL TIME, PERIOD. Couple that with its legendarily bumpy creation, and it’s not surprising that few films have been dissected as much as Steven Spielberg’s blockbuster. Laurent Bouzereau’s 1995 documentary The Making of Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, included on various LaserDisc and DVD releases, and the 1997 BBC production In the Teeth of Jaws covered much of the film’s troubled production history. (The refrain “the shark is not working” could be heard constantly by cast and crew, in reference to the various faulty mechanical great whites.) Jaws co-scripter Carl Gottlieb wrote the definitive making-of book The Jaws Log, and On Location…on Martha’s Vineyard: The Making of the Movie Jaws by Edith Blake…

BACK WHEN JAWS WAS RELEASED IN 1975, IT CAME WITH A DISCLAIMER WARNING THAT THE FILM “MAY BE TOO INTENSE FOR YOUNGER CHILDREN.” For those kids unable to see it in theatres at the time, NBC offered an alternative the following year: on May 20, 1976, the network broadcast Shark Kill, one of the first toothy movies to follow in the wake of the Steven Spielberg hit. Directed by TV veteran William A. Graham and written by Sandor Stern (who would go on to script 1979’s The Amityville Horror and write and direct the 1988 cult favourite Pin), Shark Kill takes place on and off the California coast. A shark begins cruising the waters around an oil rig, and only marine biologist Rick Dayner (Phillip Clark) recognizes that it’s a…

IF IMITATION IS THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY, THEN ITALIAN GENRE FILMMAKERS IN THE 1980S WERE AMONG THE GREATEST FLATTERERS OUT THERE. That decade saw the country let loose a flood of knockoffs of Dawn of the Dead, The Road Warrior and, of course, Jaws. GREAT WHITE (1982) STARRING JAMES FRANCISCUS, VIC MORROW AND JOSHUA SINCLAIR DIRECTED BY ENZO G. CASTELLARI This is perhaps the most notorious (attempted) cash-in of any subgenre, since the people behind the original hit successfully blocked it from finding its opportunistic fortune. Originally titled L’ultimo squalo (The Last Shark – and how wrong that was!), Castellari’s movie takes place in an oceanside town where the local governor refuses to take appropriate action following a shark attack. The great white bites some meat on a chain…

MANY FILMS AFTER JAWS TRIED TO RECAPTURE THE DEEP-SEATED FEAR SHARKS ENGENDER IN THE HUMAN ANIMAL, but none succeeded to the extent of 2004’s Open Water – which, on a production level, was something of an anti-Jaws. As opposed to a budget-busting studio project with major stars, it was shot for very little money by a two-person filmmaking team, with a pair of unknown actors as the leads. And it demonstrated that a lack of big bucks and big names need not be an impediment to big chills. Writer/director/editor Chris Kentis was inspired by the true case of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who disappeared after being accidentally abandoned by a scuba-diving boat during a trip to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in 1998. Their doppelgängers in the movie are Susan (Blanchard…

FOR MANY YEARS FOLLOWING 1975, WHENEVER SOMEBODY SAID “SHARK MOVIE,” THE FIRST TITLE THAT CAME TO MIND WAS JAWS. No other film on the subject could touch its notoriety – not a box-office hit like Deep Blue Sea, not a critical darling like Open Water, and certainly not any of the string of killer-fish flicks that attacked the direct-to-video scene in the first decade of the 2000s. Then, in 2013, a little film featuring an improbable marriage of bad weather and toothy predators became an even more improbable viral sensation. As screenwriter Thunder Levin relates, “For years, I would tell people I was a filmmaker, and of course they’d ask, ‘Have I seen anything you might have done?’ And I’d always have to answer, ‘Probably not. I did this little…

THE PROLIFERATION OF SHARK MOVIES AND THE POPULARITY OF PROGRAMMING SUCH AS SHARK WEEK OVER THE LAST COUPLE OF DECADES have led some people to desire more than just screen time with the killer fish. Certain thrill-seekers craved in-person interaction, which led to the creation of controversial “shark baiting” tours. These excursions allow patrons to climb into shark-proof cages dangling in the ocean while chum is tossed into the water to attract the local shark population. These tours have been criticized by wildlife groups and diving enthusiasts, who consider them a recipe for disaster, and there have been calls for the practice to be banned. The dangers inherent in these outings also make them ripe for cinematic thrills, and first-time feature director Gerald Rascionato has jumped into the breach with…

AS MODERN ACTION FILMS HAVE BECOME EVER MORE BIG AND SPECTACULAR, a subset of thrillers has also cropped up that focuses on one character in a confined situation, exemplified by the 2010 film Buried. Several years later, inspired by the challenges and rewards her husband Ryan Reynolds had experienced as star of that movie, actress Blake Lively took the central role in a film called In the Deep, ultimately released by Columbia Pictures in June 2016 as The Shallows. The premise of Anthony Jaswinski’s script (which made the 2014 Black List of best unproduced screenplays) is chillingly simple: medical student Nancy (Lively), at a crossroads in her life, travels to a remote Mexican beach to surf and clear her head. While out on the water alone, she’s attacked by a…

WHEN JAWS SPLASHED ITS WAY ACROSS MOVIE SCREENS IN THE SUMMER OF 1975, moviegoers had no idea of the roller-coaster thrill ride they were about to embark upon, or that they were witnessing the birth of a new breed of cinema: the Hollywood summer blockbuster. It took a tremendous bite out of the box office and made its director, 27-year-old wunderkind Steven Spielberg, into a household name. And it all started when producers Richard D. Zanuck (former president of 20th Century Fox and executive vice president at Warner Bros.) and David Brown purchased the film rights to Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel for a reported $150,000. $150,000. As book sales were rising, Zanuck and Brown initially hired commercial-turned-feature-director Dick Richards (Death Valley) to take the helm of Jaws, only to replace…

AFTER JAWS BECAME THE BIGGEST BOXOFFICE HIT OF ALL TIME, THE DECISION TO DO A SEQUEL WAS A NO-BRAINER, but getting Jaws 2 to the screen wasn’t easy. The first director on board, John Hancock (Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, Bang the Drum Slowly), was let go for taking too bleak an approach to the story, and just as on the first film, screenwriter Carl Gottlieb was called in to overhaul the script. Star Roy Scheider, who only did the film to fulfill a contractual obligation to Universal, clashed with replacement director Jeannot Szwarc, and shooting on the water proved no easier than it had the first time around. Still, Jaws 2 emerged as a creditable follow-up to its classic predecessor. Although the human drama isn’t as compelling, Szwarc finds…

IT’S THE WEEKEND BEFORE HALLOWEEN, AND I’M HANGING OUT WITH REGIONAL FILMMAKING LEGEND WILLIAM GREFÉ AT HIS MERCHANDISE TABLE at the Chiller Theatre Expo in New Jersey. His Q&A session ended a few minutes ago and a line has formed in front of his table, which is covered with DVDs, ad sheets and posters for his Florida-set fright flicks such as Death Curse of Tartu, Sting of Death and Impulse. One middle-aged man has brought an original one-sheet of 1972’s Stanley for the veteran filmmaker to sign; Grefé’s biggest box-office success, Stanley is a memorably creepy cash-in on the rodents-run-amok hit Willard, in which a man seeks vengeance with rattlesnakes instead of rats. (The director switches from a black Sharpie to a green one and signs the poster “Fangs &…

BEFORE THE MEGA SHARKS AND SHARKNADOS AND ALL THEIR LOWBUDGET BRETHREN, THERE WERE NU IMAGE’S SHARK ATTACK MOVIES. The direct-to-video (first via Trimark, then from Lions Gate) trilogy launched in 1999 with the first Shark Attack, continued with 2001’s Shark Attack 2, and then saw its most popular entry with 2002’s Shark Attack 3: Megalodon. The third installment largely owes its appeal to two factors: the over-the-top effects involved in presenting its colossal fish, and one choice line of dialogue. Shark Attack 3’s storyline sees marine biologists investigating the discovery of a giant shark’s tooth off the coast of Mexico and finding themselves facing off against a prehistoric sea beast long thought extinct. This entry ups the ante – and the body count – for the franchise with its ferocious…

A MIDST ALL THE CG-SHARK OPUSES THAT BROKE THE SURFACE IN THE 2010S, ONE MOVIE PROVED THERE AIN’T NOTHING LIKE THE REAL THING. A number of previous films had combined stock footage of the deadly fish with new shots of flailing victims, but 2011’s The Reef took that approach to a new level. Australian writer/director Andrew Traucki, who (with co-creator David Nerlich) digitally composited an actual crocodile with his human cast to frightening effect in 2008’s Black Water, took a similar approach to The Reef. The plot centres on four young friends (played by Damian Walshe-Howling, Gyton Grantley, Adrienne Pickering and Zoe Naylor) who, along with veteran sailor Warren (Kieran Darcy-Smith), embark on a yacht trip to the Great Barrier Reef that gets scuttled by an accident, leaving the boat…

BACK IN 2009, LOW-BUDGET MOVIE OUTFIT THE ASYLUM HAD BUILT A REPUTATION FOR PRODUCING “MOCKBUSTERS” that rode the coattails of major Hollywood productions – flicks such as Transmorphers, Snakes on a Train and AVH: Alien vs. Hunter, to name a few. Yet the film that earned the company the most attention that year was an original, of sorts: Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, which launched a string of Asylum giant-creature brawls and led indirectly to the notorious Sharknado. Cognizant of the inherent cheesiness of the film, writer/director Jack Perez took the pseudonym “Ace Hannah” in its credits, only to see the trailer go viral in May ’09. He freely admits that the preview’s appeal hinged on the fact that it was “so jaw-dropping in its ridiculousness” – a quality that,…

JAWS 3-D WAS THE HIGHEST-GROSSING FILM OF THE EARLY 1980S’ SHORTLIVED DIMENSIONAL BOOM, so it was only natural that when the gimmick was revived in the 2000s, the killer fish would swim off the screen again. When they did, 2011’s Shark Night 3D carried on the tradition of including the process in its title – even though it wasn’t the third in a series. Instead, Will Hayes and Jesse Studenberg’s script introduces a group of college kids who take a vacation at a remote lake house, only to find that the water is stocked with various shark species. This was the last movie directed by veteran stuntman-turned-filmmaker David R. Ellis; given that he had previously helmed both the cold-blooded campfest Snakes on a Plane and the in-your-face death showcase The…

WHEN THE DIRECT-TO-VIDEO SHARKSPLOITATION CRAZE BEGAN AT THE TURN OF THE MILLENNIUM, titles such as Shark Attack, Shark Hunter and Shark Zone were enough to chum the waters and attract renters. Then came the 2010s and the franchises launched by Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, Sharktopus and Sharknado, and suddenly the monikers and concepts had to go further and further over the top to win viewers’ attention in the crowded cable/disc/streaming ocean. Following are twenty of the most notable low-budget and no-budget shark flicks from the 2010s that promised all kinds of outlandish takes on the subject. Some of them delivered, and some of them didn’t… 3-HEADED SHARK ATTACK (2015) STARRING KARRUECHE TRAN, ROB VAN DAM AND DANNY TREJO DIRECTED BY CHRISTOPHER DOUGLAS-OLEN RAY Following the apparent success of 2012’s…

JAWS IS THE MOTHER OF ALL MODERN MONSTER MOVIES, AND ITS GENIUS IS EVEN MORE APPARENT WHEN VIEWED TODAY. For this reason, Jaws: Memories From Martha’s Vineyard, Matt Taylor’s mammoth 296-page coffee-table book about the film’s production on the Massachusetts island, is an appropriate companion piece. First issued in 2011 in paperback and as a limited-edition hardcover from Moonrise Media (with a DVD containing 8mm home movies of the shoot and a small piece of the “sinking Orca” boat used in the film), the book is currently available in softcover from Titan Books. While much ink has been spilled regarding Jaws’ creation, Memories From Martha’s Vineyard is told from the perspective of the many island residents who helped make the film and served as actors (such as Lee Fierro, who…

STEVEN SPIELBERG’S MASTERPIECE JAWS WAS NOT ONLY A MONSTER SUCCESS AT THE BOX OFFICE IN 1975, it was an enormous hit for retailers as well. Hundreds of products (both licensed and unlicensed) were marketed in the wake of the film’s opening: T-shirts, model kits, a game, jigsaw puzzles, posters, beach towels, rubber sharks, a soundtrack album of John Williams’ score, neckties, jewellery, socks, drinking cups, water pistols, tie-in books, iron-on patches and even a children’s Halloween costume. Many of these items were adorned with the iconic paperback/poster artwork (painted by prolific artist Roger Kastel) of a gigantic shark rising from the deep to prey on a female swimmer. Though there had certainly been items produced for TV shows and movies before (The Munsters, The Addams Family, Batman, Dark Shadows, Star…

BEFORE GUILLERMO DEL TORO AND ALEJANDRO GONZÁLEZ IÑáRRITU, THERE WERE RENÉ CARDONA SR. AND JR. While not well-known in the States or Canada, the Cardonas are practically household names in their native Mexico; the elder René was one of the godfathers of Mexican cinema, and the duo were responsible for more than 200 movies over the course of their lifetimes. Their legacy spans generations, and while they worked in practically every genre – from comedies and wrestling adventures to action and drama – they are best known for their horror pictures, including a pair dealing with sharks. Born in 1906, Cardona Sr. originally studied to become a doctor, but in his last year of medical school, he fell in love with an American woman and followed her to New York.…

BY 1999, IT HAD BEEN MORE THAN A DECADE SINCE A MAJOR STUDIO HAD RELEASED A SHARK THRILLER (and since that movie was Jaws: The Revenge, no surprise there). It was Warner Bros. and director Renny Harlin who decided to brave the water with Deep Blue Sea, perhaps emboldened by the huge box-office success of the first two Jurassic Park movies. Following the template of Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur smashes, the predators in Deep Blue Sea aren’t your average sharks, but have been scientifically enhanced to become even bigger, smarter, more efficient and dangerous. Original scripter Duncan Kennedy added this twist to differentiate his fishy villains from naturally occurring sharks, which he felt had been “demonized” by Jaws. “Normal sharks are just animals and beautiful ones at that,” he said in…

BACK WHEN JAWS 2 RAN INTO TROUBLE AND ORIGINAL DIRECTOR JOHN HANCOCK WAS DISMISSED, Steven Spielberg got in touch with producers Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown with an offer to help. His own concept for a sequel was reportedly a dramatization of the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, recounted in Robert Shaw’s classic monologue in Spielberg’s original. That idea never gained traction as a Jaws follow-up, but the notion of chronicling the Indianapolis tragedy in a feature film resurfaced at the turn of the 21st century. (In the meantime, the story was told in the 1991 TV movie Mission of the Shark, starring Stacy Keach.) In 2001, it was announced that Warner Bros. would produce a project called The Captain and the Shark, with Barry Levinson set to direct…

EVEN IF YOU HAVEN’T BEHELD THE PAEAN TO RIDICULOUS CREATURE FEATURES THAT IS 2010’S SHARKTOPUS, you’ve probably heard people talking about that unforgettable title. Or heard disc jockeys and late-night talk-show hosts crack jokes about it. Or perhaps seen the fan tattoos online. Such is the love for this bona fide pop-culture phenomenon, whose starring beast would go on to tangle with a pteracuda and a whalewolf in a pair of sequels. In the original film, Eric Roberts plays the shady Nathan Sands, creator of the sharktopus, the ultimate experimental military weapon. When the creature breaks free of its restraints and wreaks havoc across the beaches of Mexico, it’s up to Nathan’s nerdy daughter Nicole (Sara Malakul Lane) and hunky shark hunter Andy Flynn (Kerem Bursin) to battle the beast.…

HERE’S ONE SHARK SIGHTING THAT TURNED OUT TO BE A FALSE ALARM. In early summer 2016, Dimension Films and video distributors Anchor Bay Entertainment and Starz Digital announced that they would be issuing a deep-sea thriller called In the Deep on DVD, VOD and digital HD. It was a familiar title for the subgenre; The Shallows (see p.58) started out with that name, and Cage Dive was initially announced as Into the Deep. Then, a week before the release – after review copies had already been sent to certain outlets – it was reported that the movie had been sold to Entertainment Studios, was being pulled from its August berth and would be reverting to its original title, 47 Meters Down. Freestyle Releasing, which Entertainment Studios had recently acquired, would…