Short Attention Span Review: The Shallows (2016)

Short Attention Span Review: The Shallows (2016)

There are two basic principles to consider when making a horror film with a shark in it: 

1) The good news is that such an endeavor remains appealing to the movie-going public courtesy of Jaws and that picture's lasting impact on the cinematic landscape. 

2) The bad news is that any movie with a shark in it will ultimately be compared to Jaws, which is absolutely one of the best movies ever made.

So, with that in mind, I should start here by noting that The Shallows is surely no Jaws, but that didn't really bother me as it's still a solid feature film--and it it doesn't really intend to be the next Jaws.  That 1975 mega-hit (which gave us the summer blockbuster) is a stunning ensemble piece that could adequately be described as an epic, while The Shallows is a lean thrill ride that takes place in one gorgeous seaside setting and rests entirely upon Blake Lively's shoulders.  Seriously, her most important co-star is a seagull, and at a scant 87 minutes The Shallows is clearly angling for something other than epic status.  Instead of giving us a genuine masterpiece, Director Jaume Collet-Serra has served up a great-looking survival yarn that moves quickly and continually ratchets up the suspense by constantly making things harder and harder for our quick-witted and likable protagonist.  I've never seen Lively get an opportunity to do so much, and she does a great job here in a role that requires athleticism, grit, and the ability to convey a wealth of emotions.  As Nancy, she gives The Shallows an emotional center  and a believable heroine who keeps the viewer enthralled even when there's a bit too much CGI and a few too many lapses in plausibility in play to elevate an otherwise straight-laced thriller to legendary status.  In the end, The Shallows emerges as a short thriller packed with chills and excitement, and it may be the best movie with a shark in it that isn't Jaws.  Truthfully, that's probably exactly what it was intended to be.

Final Grade: B-

The Shallows is is a taut little chiller that relies entirely upon Blake Lively to tell a stripped-down tale of survival; she proves to be up to the challenge and keeps the viewer invested in her character's daunting struggle from start to finish.

Top 20 Horror Novels - #3) Jaws by Peter Benchley (from 1974)

Not only am I ranking my Top 20 Horror Movies for you this October, but I'm doing likewise with the scary books that I hold near and dear.  As with the movies that I'm discussing in that Top 20, I'm not attempting to rank these novels based on their place in pop culture, but rather their place in my heart.  Isn't that sweet?  Seriously, there are some fine books that didn't make the cut here because there just wasn't room, and there are definitely some well-regarded books that didn't make the cut because I don't really like them.  That also means there are some personal favorites of mine on this list that you may not have heard of.  If that's the case, I promise that I'll reward your trust with a gnarly tale if you give one of them a spin.  Finally, I may have shortchanged some of the titans in the genre (hey there, Stephen King) as I didn't want to overload this list with titles by the same author, though Uncle Stevie did manage to score three direct hits on my list.

The list thus far:

#20) Amok by George Fox (from 1980) 
#19) Manstopper by Douglas Borton (from 1988)
#18) Intensity by Dean Koontz (from 1995)
#17) The Terror by Dan Simmons (from 2007) 
#16) The Snake by John Godey (from 1978)
#15) Son of the Endless Night by John Farris (from 1985)
#14) Rockinghorse by William W. Johnstone (from 1986) 
#13) Vampire$ by John Steakley (from 1990)
#12) Falling Angel by William Hjortsberg (from 1978)
#11) Christine by Stephen King (from 1983)
#10) The Manitou by Graham Masterton (from 1975)
#9) At the Mountains of Madness by H.P. Lovecraft (from 1936)
#8) All Heads Turn When the Hunt Goes By by John Farris (from 1977)
#7) Hell House by Richard Matheson (from 1971)
#6) The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty (from 1971)
#5) I Am Legend by Richard Matheson (from 1954)
#4) The Stand by Stephen King (from 1978)

Top 20 Horror Novels - #3) Jaws by Peter Benchley (from 1974)

Jaws is a different kind of horror novel, but that's precisely what makes it so powerful.  There are no supernatural entities or terrifying madman on the loose, merely a big fish that Peter Benchley presents as a deadly force of nature.  Any allusions to this actual sea monster's intelligence or nature are slight enough that we're never asked to believe that it is on a diabolical rampage.  It's just a really big shark with a really big appetite that decides to camp out in the same area for a little while.  Benchley's considerable knowledge and experience gave him the authority to present a believable account of what might happen if such a predator were to linger in the waters off a quaint little seaside community.  It's that realism that makes his novel so terrifying.  I love Dracula, but I'm not afraid of vampires because they don't really exist.  Yet, like many, though I enjoy the ocean greatly, I do fear that one day a shark might decide to see what I taste like.  It's an awful prospect, and Benchley had the talent to match his expertise--his brisk writing paints a vivid picture of the awful carnage that a massive great white shark could inflict on a human being.  Benchley also gave us a wonderful setting for his tale, the lovable town of Amity, and his characters spring to life as we sink deeper and deeper into his robust tale.  Those who know the movie well but have never experienced the book will discover a pair of exciting subplots that didn't make it to the screen, namely the stubborn mayor's ties to the mob and Ellen Brody's fling with Hooper.  Chief Brody is never certain of his wife's infidelity, but he knows something is amiss, and this particular subplot creates a wealth of tension when he and Hooper take to the sea alongside the salty sailor Quint in a rousing third act.  Primary characters who survived the movie perish in the novel, and the conclusion of the book is far different (and vastly superior) to the exciting climax that Spielberg chose for his film.  There's also a lot of warmth and character development that serves to keep readers thoroughly invested.  Honestly, my favorite scene in the book is a dinner party where Brody has a bit too much to drink.  In closing, Jaws is one of the best books ever written, and it still has enough bite to scare people away from the ocean. 

Short Attention Span Review: Bait (2012)

Bait is just your average "great white sharks terrorize shoppers at the grocery store" movie, and while that particular sub-genre is overpopulated, this one manages to stand out.  Okay, so just to be clear, I am kidding about there being more than one of these absurdities, but I'm not kidding about Bait being a movie about people being terrorized by great white sharks at the grocery store.  Despite this ludicrous premise and an opening that is 100% terrible, the movie somehow works.  First off, the opening is awful.  I'm still not quite sure why I didn't turn Bait off after that bullshit, but I'm glad I didn't.  The picture that follows is gleefully idiotic, but it is also ferociously entertaining.  And after that opening convinced me that the special effects would be inferior to the great white carnage I used to enjoy while playing Jaws on my NES as a child, the rest of the movie benefits from superior effects work.  {Clarification: the term "superior effects work" as used in the previous statement applies to the effects seen in the opening reel of Bait as opposed to special effects in general.}  So, how did the sharks wind up in the grocery store?  See, the store was flooded during a tsunami, and as is so often the case when tsunamis occur, a pair of large great whites wind up trapped in the flooded supermarket.  Now, in addition to the presence of a pair of bloodthirsty sharks, there are number of interesting characters involved in various situations that could yield entire movies of their own stuck in the flooded store.  Among them are a brokenhearted dude and his former flame (I shit you not, their romance fell apart after he failed to save her brother from a shark attack in that totally inept opening scene), a sympathetic robber and his sadistic accomplice, a cop summoned to arrest a shoplifter who just so happens to be his daughter, and so on and so forth.  Truthfully, Bait should sink like a stone under the weight of the absurd premise and all the ridiculous contrivances that spring up throughout its 93 minute running time.  Yet it somehow gets the job done.  It's fun to watch and you will actually wind up liking some of these ridiculous characters and pulling for them as they struggle to survive in these ridiculous circumstances.  Julian McMahon (a guy who should have become a legitimate star and instead pulled hard time on Charmed and received third billing in Bait) does a great job as the sympathetic robber and deserves a lot of the credit for grounding this ludicrous yarn.  Kimble Rendall deserves some praise for holding this thing together as a director, and given how it turned out, I'm almost willing to pardon him for that opening.  Russell Mulcahy, the guy who gave us Highlander and Razorback (What? I like Razorback) helped out with the script.  I'm feeling generous, so I'll even point out that the effects team that totally shit the bed in the first ten minutes of the movie held it down when it mattered most.  In the end, I'm not sure how it happened, but in this silly movie with a woeful beginning wound up being an entertaining ride that I'm going to recommend.  I might even give it a "B." 

Final Grade: B-

It's hard to determine if it's the realism or the subtlety that make Bait so entertaining.

Short Attention Span Review: Grizzly (1976)

Gee, I wonder if this was inspired by Jaws?  Arriving in cinemas a year after that 1975 smash hit, this contrived man vs. nature flick from executive producer Edward L. Montoro trades a big shark for a big bear and subs in Christopher George, Richard Jaeckel, and Andrew Prine for Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw.  Advantage: Jaws.  Yes, Grizzly is inferior to Spielberg's masterpiece in every way possible, but that doesn't mean that it's a bad movie.  It's not a good movie either, it's just an average film that does manage to provide the viewer with a few thrills and an abundance of gorgeous scenery.  There are a multitude of shots from the bear's POV and a lot of genuine bear footage to go along with a fair amount of gore, though the film suffers whenever a shot requires someone to interact with the titular menace.  The amount of suspense the picture is able to generate is surprising, and Grizzly somehow succeeds despite an abundance of cliches and a lack of originality.  Seriously, you could put this movie on and engage in a drinking game where you take a shot every time something happens in Grizzly that is a blatant rip-off of something that happened in Jaws, but you would probably succumb to alcohol poisoning.  That aside, the picture has its merits.  The direction courtesy of William Girdler is okay and the acting is good; George, Jaeckel, and Prine all do a fine job with the material.  Of the three, George was the clear choice to serve as the lead, and each of these actors enjoyed worthwhile careers in film and television.  I personally feel that each of these talented performers was vastly underrated, but the horror genre that I'm so enamored with benefited greatly from the lack of mainstream respect that they received.  The plot is pretty much what you would expect: a scenic park is the setting for a grisly grizzly rampage and the bear in question is a massive specimen.  Despite the presence of a smug and greedy authority figure (Joe Dorsey doing his best Murray Hamilton), the good guys embark on a quest to save the day, though only of one of them will live to the see the job finished. 

Final Grade: C

Jaws by Peter Benchley

I'm reading Jaws.  Again.

Seriously, my paperback is held together by scotch tape and love at this point.  I have a hard time deciding which of the books I hold so dear is actually my favorite.  It's probably the book you've read the most, right?  If that's true, it's either Jaws or 'Salem's Lot.  Either way, the heat of summer is here and I'm hanging with Brody and Quint once again.  I'm happy to hang with Hooper whenever I watch the movie, but he's kind of a prick in the book.  For those who don't know, I'm not offering up any spoilers (unless Hooper being a dick counts) but the book is rather different from the movie.  There are more deaths, there are entire subplots that didn't make it to the cinema, different characterizations, and most importantly, a completely different (and superior) climax.

Recently, I concluded a review of Dan Brown's Inferno by noting that Inferno = Shitburger.  That was accurate.  On a similar note, Jaws = Goldburger.

Jaws 2

Watched Jaws 2 with the fam Saturday night.  That's how we Waylands roll.  I know Kristen wasn't all that enthused initially, but even she wound up enjoying the picture.  I have always liked it a lot.  I mean, it's not Jaws, but that shouldn't be a surprise.  However, it's common knowledge that Jaws inspired a slew of imitations over the years, and I still feel that Jaws 2 is the best killer shark movie that isn't Jaws.

Roy and several others return and Amity feels right.  The effects are nifty, there are some exciting sequences, and I like the bit the kids and their boats.  In a way, this picture kind of hits me like a marriage between Jaws and a vintage Friday the 13th, say one of the early 80s editions.  It does feel like the shark is stalking Brody and the people of Amity, and there are several scenes in Jaws 2 that would fit perfectly in a slasher flick. 

I've always liked the ending, and though it is woefully inferior to Jaws, my favorite movie of all time, I am rather fond of the forgotten stepchild that is Jaws 2.  If you're looking for a good time with teeth, you could surely do worse.

The Shark is Still Working: The Legacy and Impact of Jaws

It's Shark Week, so while many of you are soaking up all the marine action airing on Discovery, I spent this morning watching the latest documentary on the pop culture phenomenon that is Jaws.  The Shark is Still Working: The Legacy and Impact of Jaws is a feature-length documentary that was included on the 2012 Blu-Ray release of my favorite picture.  I hadn't taken the time to view this collection of never-before-seen footage and interviews with the cast and crew, partly because I've seen so many of these things.  Heck, I've even read numerous accounts of the film's production, release, and most importantly, the impact the movie has had on the industry at large and the legions of fans who still adore it.  I found this documentary to be the best of the lot, and I was amazed at just how moving this making-of feature was.

Now, I could go on and on about the movie, and anyone who knows me well has probably heard me do so on multiple occasions.  Yet I'm going to direct my attention to The Shark is Still Working, which was a truly emotional experience for me.  Obviously, anyone who loves the film is going to grow wistful when thinking about the key figures involved who are no longer with us, namely Peter Benchley, Robert Shaw, and Roy Scheider, but there was so much more to this documentary.  I don't know if I can adequately describe how much impact hearing about the ultimate fate of the Orca had on me.  Seeing how Martha's Vineyard has been shaped by the movie and witnessing how the making of the film is still celebrated there was also profoundly touching.  There are many great movies, just as there are many great books, yet the scope of this particular piece of art's legacy transcends both mediums.  It's a global experience, and the legions of devotees who still cherish Jaws give it a revered spot in our society than cannot be understated.

The documentary was riveting, capturing Peter Benchley's efforts to write the story, the studio's efforts to turn the property into a motion picture, the making of the film, and the unbelievable reception that followed.  To this day, many people still harbor potent feelings on both sharks and the ocean based on Jaws.  To this day, our interest in sharks and the popularity of such material still serves to enrich the storied history of one of our most beloved tales.  The Shark is Still Working does a fantastic job of exploring how the story came to be and probes the fascination and wonder Jaws has spawned for several generations of people--not just Americans, but people all over the world.  It was a magical ride, and I can honestly say that few stories have struck such a chord with me.  Surely, I've never been so moved by a documentary about the making of a film, and that's both a credit to everyone involved with this feature and the film and book that launched the phenomenon.

If you are a fan of Jaws, (and seriously, who isn't?) you owe it to yourself to sit down and spend a little time with The Shark is Still Working.  I thought it was positively mesmerizing, and it only served to reinforce my love for a story that is proving to be timeless.

Which Jaws has the bigger bite?

While I'm resurrecting old bits, here's the first piece I published in RVA Magazine.  It's a comparison of Steven Spielberg's film and Peter Benchley's book.  It's brief, but since that there are few (if any) tales that I enjoy more, it's something I had a lot of fun with.  Enjoy!

Which Jaws has the bigger bite?

It’s a true anomaly: a stellar book is optioned by Hollywood and brought to the screen in epic fashion, surpassing the source text in the eyes of many.  For once, fans of either format can sit and ponder the merits of these beloved blockbusters, engaged in a difficult debate.  Which version has the sharpest teeth? 

            When Peter Benchley wrote his signature novel, he ignited the literary world with a gripping “Man vs. Nature” opus that plunges the reader into a marine nightmare on the first page and never looks back.  Benchley based his work on an actual series of attacks on the East Coast attributed to a single shark and this gives his plot a potent dose of realism.  The characters are well drawn, the setting is perfect, and the prose is both rhythmic and knowledgeable, a delicate balancing act performed to perfection here.

            Steven Spielberg took Benchley’s book to tinseltown and frightened audiences across the country out of the water with his amped-up approach and an explosively different climax (literally) that won the author over despite some initial conflict.  Young Spielberg was willing to take more chances and it shows, this stark and scary picture is a far cry from the family fare the director is also known for.  Here, his ambition and ability join forces with an exceptional cast to land an instant classic.  Give an assist to John Williams, the famed film composer who supplied one of cinema’s grandest scores.

            Since there can be no doubt that both versions of this tale have touched countless lives, a prominent question arises: which is the better fishing trip to go on?  Unfortunately, this is a query that simply cannot be answered.  The two visions vary enough that it simply will not work if one attempts to compare and contrast them.  Prominent characters and subplots within the novel didn’t make it before the cameras, most notably an extramarital sexual encounter between Matt Hooper and Ellen Brody that charges the third act of the book with blistering tension as three men take to the sea in pursuit of one of nature’s most violent killers.  Alas, who can forget Robert Shaw’s incredible monologue regarding his service on the Indianapolis, a plot device Spielberg originated and a setpiece the actor ran wild with.  There is also the conclusion to consider, as well as the fact that a primary character who survives on celluloid perishes in print.

            This is all a blessing, as those who know and love the story have two separate experiences to enjoy, both of which are frequently cited as favorites by bookworms and film buffs alike.