It’s been five decades since I first sat in a dark movie theater, popcorn in hand, and witnessed something on screen that would permanently alter my relationship with the ocean. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, released on June 20, 1975, wasn’t just a movie; for me, and countless others, it was a psychological imprint that endures to this day.
I saw Jaws during its opening weekend 50 years ago with my friend Raymond. We were in a South Jersey theater, buzzing with anticipation. We’d both read Peter Benchley’s bestselling novel, which I’d perhaps dismissively seen as little more than a beach-read Moby Dick. But the film’s hype was undeniable, fueled by the promise of young Spielberg, who had already proven his mastery of suspense with the classic TV movie Duel.
The movie was a sold-out event, and it delivered beyond expectation. It was terrifying, shocking, incredibly suspenseful, and yes, surprisingly funny at times. Jaws remains one of the most entertaining nights I’ve ever spent at the movies. It was an epochal hit, changing Hollywood by ushering in the era of the summer blockbuster and reshaping audience expectations forever.
A Lifelong Fear Takes Hold
But Jaws also changed me in a profound, albeit irrational, way. For the past 50 years, I’ve been reluctant to venture into the ocean much beyond my knees. A quiet, persistent voice whispers in my mind: “What if there’s something just below the surface? Something with rows of sharp teeth and a healthy appetite, perhaps heading straight for your leg?”
This isn’t a sudden spike of adrenaline or heightened sense of immediate danger. It’s more like a soft, constant surge of dread, a feeling akin to my nervous system being permanently rewired to the pulsing, ominous strings of John Williams’ iconic score.
Perhaps even more irrationally, swimming pools can sometimes trigger this anxiety. The empty blue expanse inexplicably brings to mind that chilling shot late in the film where the shark approaches head-on, seemingly swimming directly towards the camera (and Richard Dreyfuss’ character, Matt Hooper).
Interestingly, I don’t recall feeling this way immediately after the movie. The initial feeling was one of exhilaration. But the resistance to the ocean set in gradually and stuck. Intellectually, I know the risk of a fatal shark attack is astronomically low – estimated at 1 in 4.3 million. Yet, this knowledge offers little comfort. I have other phobias, many of them far more intrusive (like peas!), which I encounter much more frequently than sharks.
Despite the low probability, Jaws left a permanent mark. The thought of entering open water creates a barrier of unspoken anxiety that I simply don’t want to breach. Since 1975, I’ve heeded this strange, nagging instinct, perfectly content to remain on the sand, perhaps reading anything but a Peter Benchley novel.
The Shared Trauma of Amity Island
I’ve spoken with colleagues who experienced a similar reaction, and I suspect there are thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of others who haven’t been able to fully shake those shark-infested thoughts.
One striking example, documented in a 1975 letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, describes a 17-year-old girl brought to neurologists in Wichita just days after seeing the film. She presented with “rigidity, jerking of the limbs and hallucinations of being attacked by sharks.” Over three days, she suffered five terror episodes, repeatedly screaming “sharks, sharks,” despite admitting to the doctors that “the risks of shark attack in western Kansas were indeed remote!” It highlights the powerful, sometimes extreme, psychological impact the film had.
I doubt Spielberg’s primary intention was to traumatize audiences; he simply aimed to make a sensationally effective movie. But Jaws taps into something deeper. My lasting memories and fears seem rooted in the film’s unsettling core theme: the unseen predator lurking in the vast, dark unknown.
More Than Just a Monster Movie
Jaws explores what could be called “The Fear That Eats You” – often interpreted as death itself, which eventually consumes us all. But it could also represent life’s unpredictable dangers, or perhaps fear itself. It brings to mind Nobel laureate Peter Handke’s description of horror as “perfectly natural: the mind’s emptiness,” a concept that feels remarkably relevant to the primal terror Jaws evokes.
This sense of a shadowy, overwhelming, inescapable force is a powerful literary current. Melville’s Moby Dick features a similar primal, enigmatic threat, a “dorsal fin of doom.” Even Lewis Carroll’s mock-epic The Hunting of the Snark – a “snark” being one letter away from “shark” – includes the terrifying, vanishing Boojum, embodying an existential dread: “But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day / In a moment (of this I am sure) / I shall softly and suddenly vanish away—/ And the notion I cannot endure!” Film noir thrillers, like James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, can also evoke this bone-chilling anxiety about unseen underwater threats.
Jaws visually captures this literary dread. In an unforgettable overhead shot, Spielberg reveals the shark’s full length – a “flash of dirty white down in the green,” echoing Cain’s description.
While other films have depicted terrifying aquatic creatures – Moby Dick (1956), Pinocchio (1940), 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), Open Water (2003) – Jaws somehow surpasses them all, leaving an unparalleled psychological residue.
Spielberg’s Masterclass in Terror
Spielberg, even at 26, was a remarkably canny director. His focus wasn’t on symbolic meaning but on ruthless, effective storytelling. He picks off victims with sniper-like precision. The opening scene, the death of the skinny-dipper, is a brutal piece of choreography that grips you so intensely there’s little room for pity – the narrative demanded her sacrifice.
Spielberg, known later for sentimentality, avoids it here. Even the death of the young boy near shore is presented not for pathos, but for sheer shock – the gasp-inducing red geyser of blood. The audience doesn’t dwell on the human victims; they feel the impending attack and the attack itself. The humans are chum; the shark is what eats the chum. The film is about you and that “Fear That Eats You.”
Spielberg constructs this cinematic trap with something akin to masterful love. Unease is stoked through inspired techniques. The climactic hunt aboard the Orca was filmed, Spielberg noted, without land on the horizon, denying the audience any visual suggestion of safety or escape. Roy Scheider’s Chief Brody, notably afraid of the ocean, becomes a highly relatable character for any audience member with phobic tendencies.
Crucially, Spielberg’s deployment of the shark itself is near perfect. For most of the runtime, the creature is a menacing presence. We see fins, the shark’s underwater POV of dangling legs (“like hams hanging in a butcher’s shop”), and fleeting glimpses. Perhaps the film’s most potent scare is the sudden, massive appearance of the shark’s head looming from the water near the boat before sinking away, seeming to grin like an aquatic Hannibal Lecter.
Even when the mechanical shark, Bruce, makes its full appearance, such as flinging itself onto the Orca‘s deck at the end, it might momentarily look like something from a carnival ride. But those few seconds cannot erase the accumulation of sinister impressions that came before – impressions that proved anything but fleeting.
Reflections 50 Years On
As I began writing this, I intended to reach out to Raymond, my friend from that opening weekend screening. He’d been a high school lifeguard and a strong swimmer; I wondered if Jaws had affected him differently. I knew he’d remember the exact theater. We hadn’t been in touch for years, but I planned to message him on Facebook.
Then, I saw someone had posted his photograph. A month prior, he had been killed during a storm, struck by a falling tree in his own yard.
His death prompts reflection. What was Raymond’s greatest fear? Did he conquer it? He was always physically braver than I. One might ask why I worry about never-seen sharks instead of falling branches soughing in the wind. Perhaps the question is different: Why worry about sharks or trees when it’s far more likely that a friend you’ve neglected will simply… be gone? Maybe that is the fear we should hold onto.
Despite this poignant realization, it doesn’t mean I’ll be flinging myself into the waves next time I see the ocean. Jaws truly did a number on me. And 50 years later, the indelible mark remains.
Enjoy your summer at the shore, everyone!