Jaws

 

I had never seen Jaws before we viewed it in class, thank you so much for playing it. My god it was so much more suspenseful than I thought it would be. I think I jumped at every single little jumpscare, even when I could tell that one was probably coming. I found myself awaiting jumpscares that never happened, because I cringed at every sight of people in the water. The beach scene on the fourth of July weekend was the most tense thing I have watched in film in a long time. 

The suspense in this movie is incredible, and much of it comes from the sound design and cinematography. Having the camera cut to moving underwater shots to simulate the shark, even when the shark isn't actually in the scene, is a technique that Spielberg used that I caught onto during the movie but it still managed to put fear in me. The sound cues of the shark, namely the music, would play and I thought that it was going to be the end for someone on screen, but then my expectations were subverted when no real shark actually attacked. A few times the shark did appear on screen with absolutely no sound cues leading up to it, and those scares always got me too. 

I felt helpless in the classroom, jumping at every trick that a film from almost 5 years ago was pulling. That's how I knew it was a classic by the end of it, the timelessness of the scenes still affected me today, even after other pieces have borrowed things from Jaws and reused techniques. I think the original still does it best, I can't remember seeing another piece of film that was as suspenseful throughout my existence as a casual film viewer. Although I usually don't do horror movies in general, so I probably haven't seen other great examples of the techniques that Spielberg used here, but seeing this film did not increase my desire to watch them. I would like to go back to popcorn action films please.