Jaws (1975) by Steven Spielberg

Jaws is a 124-minute horror thriller film that focuses on the incident on the beach with a giant shark. It was released in 1975 and it is one of the most successful blockbuster films in Hollywood. Furthermore, it surpassed prediction by grossing over 40 million dollars in total. Moreover, it is listed in the AFI 100 as one of the greatest American films and was the last film about a creature that was nominated for the Academy Awards in 1976.

Jaws focuses on the giant creature, but the giant shark isn’t the main character in this film. It focuses more on the humans instead of the giant shark, such as the shark hunter Quint, sheriff Martin Brody, marine biologist Matt Hooper, and the town mayor. It focuses on the incident with the shark, attempts to cover that incident by the mayor and other politicians, the rescue of residents and city visitors from the shark, and the hunt for the giant shark with Quint, Martin, and Matt. The town’s sheriff Martin Brody studies the corpse and found that the case was related to the shark. However, the mayor and the other town politicians ignored Martin's argument and opened the town’s festivals, which increased the victims by the giant shark. So, Martin planned to kill that shark with shark hunter Quint and Marine biologist Matt Hooper. As a result, they killed the shark by using the oxygen tank, rifle, mashed meat and harpoon gun.

In the middle of the film, at the 46-50 minute mark, Martin and Matt search the waters where the giant shark appeared in the night. During the search, they found an empty boat. When Matt dives in the ocean and checks the bottom of the boat, he finds one of the giant shark’s teeth at the bottom of the boat and also a corpse that was murdered by the giant shark. At this point, the corpse appeared suddenly with the sound of screams. It represents the chagrin of the victims because in the previous scene, the shark was hunted by shark hunters, which was not that giant shark. In addition, it illustrates the scary fact that the town’s ocean is still not safe by showing the corpse inside the boat without any clues and appearing suddenly. The corpse appeared in an unexpected way that was frightening—both the prop and the soundtrack came up suddenly in the middle of the frame, [refer to color/light here]. The audience would also not have expected a blockbuster movie to include a jump scare, as this was not common at the time.