Jaws: The Revenge Contains One Of The Franchise’s Most Terrifying Scenes

Jaws: The Revenge is commonly cited as one of the worst movies ever produced, but it also has one of the most terrifying scenes of any of the sequels. Jaws 3D from 1983 tried to take advantage of the short-lived revival of the 3D format, but a dull story, characters and setpieces saw it receive poor reviews upon release. The sequel was still a sizable hit for Universal, but given the response to the film, it appeared the franchise was finished.

That’s until Universal executive Sid Sheinberg greenlit Jaws ’87, which was later retitled Jaws: The Revenge. The premise of the sequel saw a great white shark seemingly out for revenge against the family of the late Chief Brody – Roy Scheider declined to return – and it’s up to his widow Ellen (Lorraine Gary) to save the day. Universal had suffered a run of disappointments at the time like Howard The Duck, so it was reasoned a fourth Jaws would make a quick profit for the studio. While the movie did end up being a mild success, it received scathing reviews aimed at its lack of scares, bad screenplay and the basic premise of a shark seeking revenge and even swimming from New England to the Bahamas to stalk them.

Director Joseph Sargent tried to give Jaws: The Revenge a more supernatural edge to make the concept palatable, but the sequel is considered one of the worst movies ever made. This is slightly overblown, however, as 1987’s Jaws: The Revenge has its plus points such as an eerie score by Michael Small, a great cast and even some unsettling sequences like the opening attack on Sean Brody. It’s far from a great – or even good movie – but it’s not the worst either. It also has one of the most disturbing setpieces of the Jaws sequels in the banana boat attack.

For context, this scene comes towards the end of Jaws: The Revenge’s second act. Ellen’s five-year-old granddaughter is on a banana boat with some other children and their parents. The adults on the beach are distracted by a ceremony when the shark appears, and in a nightmarish sequence, emerges from the water in front of the terrified children with its mouth agape. Its dives towards them, and at the last moment grabs a luckless woman in its mouth and pulls her under the water to her doom.

While Jaws: The Revenge’s animatronic shark could be more convincing, there’s something very unsettling about this scene. From the slow-motion used to convey the weight of the beast to the way the music slows down, it’s one of the maligned sequel’s better attempts at creating a dream-like feel. It’s likely any viewers who saw this sequence when they were young were also left slightly scarred by it, as it taps into any number of nightmares. Jaws: The Revenge will never be reappraised as an underrated classic, but it at least has one horror moment worthy of the franchise name.

About The Author

Padraig Cotter
(3486 Articles Published)

It’s pronounced Paw-rick, not Pad-raig. Now that’s out of the way, a brief introduction. Padraig has been writing about film online since 2012, when a friend asked if he’d like to contribute the occasional review or feature to their site.

A part-time hobby soon blossomed into a career when he discovered he really loved writing about movies, TV and video games – he even (arguably) had a little bit of talent for it. He has written words for Den of Geek, Collider, The Irish Times and Screen Rant over the years, and can discuss anything from the MCU – where Hawkeye is clearly the best character – to the most obscure cult b-movie gem, and his hot takes often require heat resistant gloves to handle.

He’s super modern too, so his favorite movies include Jaws, Die Hard, The Thing, Ghostbusters and Batman. He can be found as i_Padds on Twitter making bad puns.

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