How Steven Spielberg's JAWS Became More Frightening Due To The Shark Malfunctioning

Steven Spielberg’s Jaws is such a great and terrifying film. That movie freaked me out as a kid and I couldn’t get enough of it! I watched this movie over and over again when I was growing up. The shark was originally supposed to have a lot more screen time in the movie, but due to the animatronic shark malfunctioning all the time, they had to limit the screen time, and that made the movie much more frightening.

I’ve got a video here for you to watch from Norm Wilner of the Toronto International Film Festival and in it he explains how the seemingly unfortunate malfunction of the shark made Jaws scarier.

Jaws is the greatest accident in the history of cinema Brilliant, right? Unforgettable even. But here’s the thing: That’s not the movie Steven Spielberg set out to make. Spielberg had originally wanted the great white shark that menaces the people of Amity Island to be a constant presence in the film. But it turned out saltwater wasn’t exactly conducive to animatronics.

It was then explained that this need for Spielberg to pivot in how he directed Jaws made it the incredible movie that it became.

On any given day in the summer of 1974, Spielberg and his crew had to figure out a way to represent the monster they couldn’t show, suggesting its presence through John William’s insidiously simple score, employing a subjective camera for its underwater P.O.V., showing us glimpses of its carnage, or even representing it by, shall we say, alternative means. It worked. It worked brilliantly. From its very first scene, Jaws grabs audiences with its simplicity and its intensity, but we still wouldn’t regard it as a classic if we didn’t care about the people at its centre. …

Check out the video below and let us know what you think!