If you want to know how Jaws almost killed the entire town of Amity, including the deaths
that were taken out of the movie, then stick around until the end of this video.
Jaws is the beast from the sea that rarely surfaced in his own movie and but came out
slightly more in the novel, oftentimes leaving a trail of blood and flesh in his wake.
He was the nightmare laying siege, physically and mentally, to the small-town of Amity and
their year-round residents.
Jaws author Peter Benchley stated that he “could never write Jaws today” or “demonize
an animal” Since Jaws is a shark, we’re going to look at what makes him the demon
that Benchley originally intended.
So, in today’s episode, we’ll attempt to analyze the shark’s impact on Amity through
a psychological lens.
To understand the full threat of the shark’s occupation, we've gotta start by understanding
the town.
Amity is one of the summer communities on Long Island’s southern shore.
The population of its year-round residents is about 1,000, boosting to 10,000 in the
summer.
The summertime residents are important for keeping Amity a thriving community during
the winter, since they mainly consist of lawyers and bankers who are looking to get away for
twelve weeks.
There is this logic that all of the full-time residents follow, where everyone does what
they can to maintain a good image for the town.
That way, it always appears to be a favorable place to spend the summers.
This is done to produce a wealthy summer season to get through the winter where, even after
the best summers, three of every ten families go on relief.
Due to this understanding, the police chief, Martin Brody, and the editor of the local
paper, Harry Meadows, will filter the news to ensure that Amity appears attractive to
the summer people who subscribe to the local paper.
At the same time, the understanding roots out anyone who is potentially dishonest in
their work ethic.
A few years before the novel, two brothers came to Amity to start running a carpentry
business and originally earned a good reputation.
After the long-time residents discovered their use of inferior parts, while charging for
the higher quality ones, the people of Amity made sure it was impossible for them to run
the business.
This unspoken agreement is stated to root from a need to survive, meaning that one or
two bad apples have to be tossed out as quickly as possible.
If not, they could ruin the revenue for the entire town.
The Amity understanding is a portrayal of how local and traditional mindsets function
within modern limitations.
The peaceful nature of the community is interrupted when the shark appears in their waters.
Measuring in at about 20 feet long, 4 feet wide at the snout, and an estimated weight
of 5,000-6,000 pounds, Jaws is bigger than a large pick-up truck.
This is slightly smaller than his film counterpart, Bruce, who measured up to 25 feet.
Jaws first emerges from the depths around 1:00AM on June 16th, nearly a whole month
before the movie.
He’s initially attracted to Amity’s beaches by the vibrations of a late night swimmer,
Christine ‘Chrissie’ Watkins.
Starting by making a wide circle around her, the water briefly surges up before settling
back down.
Being alerted to something, she pauses for a moment.
Since she’s already tired and a bit uneasy, she starts to hurry back to the shore.
She initially believed some coral or driftwood had scraped against her leg, but when she
went to feel for her foot, she has to reach higher and higher until her fingers found
the nub of her bone.
Screaming in panic, she starts thrashing for the shore.
Taking his chance, Jaws dives down before ramming into her from below and tossing her
out of the water.
Clamping his mouth around her torso, he slams back into the water in a shower of blood and
scraps of flesh.
This seems to be the point that Jaws develops a craving for human flesh, instead of… you
know, just seals and fish and the Sunday deal at Long John Silver’s.
A normal shark might have spat her leg out, because people are too boney and don’t have
the amount of fat content that sharks prefer.
Typically when sharks go for people it’s because they’re starving or just confused
the person for a seal.
Or… you know.
The Sunday deal at Long John--
Rather than that, Jaws becomes the ‘monster’ of nightmares by deciding the waters of Amity
are now part of its home range.
Adding this stop to its migration route probably means that he’ll stick around anywhere
from 1 to 3 months.
In doing this, he becomes the harbinger of the residents' worst fears and revealer of
their darkest secrets.
Jaws becomes known as an unforgiving overlord and gatekeeper of Amity.
The initial response from Mayor Vaughn and Meadows was to keep it quiet to ensure a good
summer revenue, despite Chief Brody’s insistence to close the beaches.
Their logic to keep them open is that it was that the attack was a one-time thing, since
sharks don’t usually stay in one place for long.
Chief Brody originally objects, arguing with Mayor Vaughn that he has the interest of public
safety in mind.
However, he seems to be the only one for closing the beaches.
With his job threatened by the Mayor, he concedes and allows the beaches to stay open.
The offensive nature of Vaughn’s position appears to be justified, based on the Amity understanding.
They still need the summer to go well for the town to survive through winter.
Meanwhile, Chief Brody’s position initially seems to come from his fear of the ocean,
and any water that is deeper than his shoulders.
In this sense, Jaws is the physical embodiment of Chief Brody’s fear of the demons under
the water.
The next time Jaws surfaces is on Sunday, June 20th when 6 year old Alex Kintner goes
out to swim on his small raft.
The raft Alex is on is small enough for him to use it similarly to a boogie board, or surfboard.
He doesn’t notice the current carrying him further from shore until he’s about 40 yards
away.
With his legs splashing in the water, the shark hones in on the movement it stirs.
Jaws follows the vibrations until he’s about 20 feet away, then there’s a brief moment
when he loses the signal, passing directly under Alex as the boy takes a break.
It’s not until Alex starts kicking again that Jaws locks in on the source of the movement.
He propels himself almost straight out of the water, knocking the child and raft into
his mouth.
I tried doing this at the Taco Bell drive through, by just sticking my head out the
window and flooring it, but it didn’t go quite how I imagined.
Unlike my taco, Alex’s death was quick, and over with before the boy could scream.
The only part of him not swallowed up was his legs.
As Jaws flops back into the ocean, Alex's father on shore notices the movement.
When he goes to Mrs. Kintner, the realization takes a moment to set in.
Together, they go to the police station to report the incident.
Unfortunately for Amity, two reporters from the New York Times and Newsday, respectively,
happened to be at the beach.
They both inhabit the police station after the event, trying to get information to publish
a story.
This is one of the worst situations for Amity.
If the story got out, their 4th of July weekend would be a bust, and potentially force the
town into massive decline over the winter.
With money already tight in most households, a poor summer could lead to the townspeople
buying cheaper goods, resulting in a declining tax revenue, which would make it difficult
to effectively maintain public works, like gas and electricity.
The domino effect could lead to long-time residents moving out, turning Amity into a
ghost town.
In the middle of the exchange, another cop named Patrolman Hendricks bursts in, frantically
informing Chief Brody of another attack, and this one would be too gruesome to include
in the movie.
After the patrolman’s outburst, Chief Brody is silently thankful that the reporters
failed to notice the slip of Hendricks’s tongue with the word: another.
Hendricks is the most up-to-speed on the shark attacks, aside from the Chief, so a massive
slip up could have jeopardized the reputation of the town’s authorities.
Urging him to continue, Hendricks describes how he went to the beach for the first time
in years, and heard a surfer scream as he was repeatedly knocked down.
He explained to Chief Brody that “…blood was flying all over the place.
The fish kept coming back and hitting him again and again.”
Hendricks had tried to go and help the man, reaching waist-deep water, but by the time
he was able to grab the man’s hand, his arm fell away from his shoulder.
This type of attack pattern is generally used by sharks for larger prey, like elephant seals,
which can fight back and do damage to their skin.
The idea is to stun the prey, making it easier to kill and consume.
We can only imagine the shark felt somewhat intimidated by the sheer size of the man's
surfboard, since boards usually range from 6 to 7 feet long.
This surfer incident, on top of the Kintner boy, causes Chief Brody to order the immediate
closure of the beaches, to ensure public safety.
Sounds all too familiar...
When discussing the situation with Mayor Vaughn, the two decide to hunt down the shark before
it can do any further damage.
On Tuesday June 24th, the local fisherman, Ben Gardner, was sent out on his boat to look
for Jaws.
Chief Brody spends an hour watching his boat, the Flicka, with binoculars until Hendricks
shows up to see how things are going.
Expressing his concern, the Chief decides to head to the marina to borrow a boat with
Hendricks.
When they reach Gardner's boat, they can’t find any sign of him.
They look around and discover that the radio is still on, and the boat anchored in at least a hundred
feet of water.
The only signs of what could have happened are some scraped paint and what could have
been a bite mark on the hull.
Noticing something in one of the punctures, the Chief lifts Hendricks over the side.
When he’s pulled back in the boat, Hendricks reveals a two-inch wide shark tooth.
The only conclusion they can come up with is that Jaws got ahold of Ben somehow.
It’s a reasonable one too, as there have been documented instances of Great White sharks
attacking fishing boats.
It’s a bit unclear why Jaws would attack the boat, it could be that it saw the dropping
anchor as a threat, or possibly that he smelled fish and was curious about
if he could eat the boat or not.
When Sharks are on the prowl for food, they usually take a bite first to see if they like
it, and if it doesn’t taste like something in their usual diet, they usually just leave
it.
But if this impact knocked Ben into the water, Jaws might have just taken that as his reward
instead, remember, this particular shark seems to have actually developed a taste for humans.
By now, Jaws knows a few things about the waters around Amity.
First is that there’s always food around, even on boats, and that people count as a
tasty food source.
With Ben Gardner’s death, we are introduced to the ichthyologist, Matt Hooper.
Basically, Hooper studies sharks and frequently dives with them.
He’s described as being clean shaven, tanned, lean, and being in his mid-twenties.
So, nothing like the bearded depiction in the film because supposedly having a big beard like
that can get in the way while diving.
Another differing point from the film is that Chief Brody has an immediate dislike towards
Hooper.
While they’re on good terms on screen, their novel depictions frequently get into arguments
over almost everything.
In the wake of Hooper’s arrival and Ben’s death, Hooper begins using the Flicka to patrol
the waters.
With the beaches still closed, he’s able to test the water and study the marine life
in hopes of finding out why Jaws is there.
Unfortunately for Hooper, he doesn’t run into the shark after spending an entire week
studying the area.
So, when he attends the meeting of the selectmen, Mayor Vaughn and Chief Brody, he confirms
that they should be clear to reopen the beaches for the 4th of July weekend.
He also notes that the water is getting too warm for a Great White to be there.
The Chief doesn’t want anything reopened, claiming that they don’t know if the shark
actually left or not.
Despite his initial feeling, the selectmen and the Mayor point out that the town is
dying.
The past two weeks have had a major impact on local businesses, forcing many to have
sales just to scrape in a little bit of profit.
With the beaches open for the holiday weekend, Chief Brody sets Hendricks up on the public
beach, Hooper out in Flicka, and himself on the private beaches to keep watch for any
sign of the shark.
On July 3rd the Chief encountered a family trespassing on the private beaches.
In their conversation, he discovers that Amity is getting a reputation for having a killer
shark inhabiting the waters.
The family came to the beach hoping to get a glimpse, and this was the exact opposite
of what Amity wants to be known for.
While having a man-eating shark will keep a lot of tourist money away, there are some
people who would travel out of their way to see these… interesting creatures.
Even if that means risking their life.
What?
Why are you looking at me like that?
However, the town would end up nearly completely abandoned before shark spotting would become
its main point of interest.
The bad luck in Amity doesn’t seem to run out.
All it takes to stir up a sense of unease is for a young boy to go swimming, on a bet.
And the shark would not be Brody’s only worry, with a news reporter also prowling
on the scene of this summertime getaway.
Brody keeps an eye out for the boy as he goes out.
It doesn’t take long for Hooper to see something in the water and quickly turn the boat around.
Radioing Hooper, the Chief tells him about the boy so he can move the boat closer.
What they don’t know is that Jaws was hanging around underneath the Flicka for most of the
day.
The change in the boat’s motor, brings the shark to life, causing it to follow the boat
towards shallower water, and towards the boy.
Chief Brody moves into the water a bit, getting knocked back by a wave.
As the boy reaches the chest-deep water and tries moving further towards shore, the fin
of the shark appears out of the water behind him.
Between the Chief and the shark, the boy moves a bit faster because he knows something is
wrong.
In a stroke of luck, Chief Brody gets the boy first and Jaws retreats deeper into the water.
While this scene is tense, it does display natural limitations of the shark.
Since he has to continuously move forward in order to breathe, he has to avoid accidentally beaching himself
over a mouthful of food, so the shallower areas were essentially off-limits.
Forced to close the beaches again, Amity has to come up with another solution.
In a last ditch effort, they call in a former War veteran turned sharkhunter named Sam Quint,
a man who takes the cliche ‘swears like a sailor’ to the extreme.
I’d love for him to meet our cab driver from It.
With the new ally came a new boat, but even with a bigger boat, Jaws was unafraid to back
down from the challenge.
“We’re gonna need a bigger boat.”
On Quint’s boat, Orca, they manage to encounter Jaws a total of three times.
The first time is only a brief passing.
The second time, Hooper hops into his shark cage to see Jaws underwater and take some
photos.
When he goes in, he takes an underwater weapon in case Jaws gets too close.
On the initial pass, Jaws swims close enough to the cage for Hooper to run his hand along
the side.
The interaction is peaceful, until the sounds of Quint firing shots into the water disturb
the scene.
Once this happens, Jaws swims out a bit before turning and ramming himself into the cage.
He manages to pry the bars apart with his continued ramming, the same technique used
against elephant seals and more dangerous prey.
It seems that Jaws didn’t truly feel threatened until the shots were fired at him.
The disturbance agitated him to some degree, and he associated it with the strange cage
floating nearby.
The Hooper in the novel isn’t as fortunate as his film counterpart.
Before he’s able to use the weapon, the shark bites down on his torso.
In a display of… graphic details, Jaws jumps out of the water with Hooper’s legs hanging
out of one side of his mouth, and his head and arms out the other.
I guess Mrs. Jaws never taught her son PROPER MANNERS AT THE DINNER TABLE.
With Hooper dead, Quint declares that this hunt is no longer a matter of money.
Though he never speaks the reason, it seems clear that he has developed a burning desire
to kill it, even if he has to do it alone.
Their final encounter with Jaws turns into a storied hunt that the novel has led up
to.
Once they get to a specific area closer to shore, Jaws surfaces as if waiting for them.
Within a half hour, Quint and Brody manage to hook 3 harpoons, into him: one by his fin,
another near his stomach, and one in the head, just above the right eye.
During this, Jaws attempts to sink their boat by ramming into it, even taking a bite to
shake the boat.
Eventually, Jaws resorts to trying to swim away for nearly 3 hours, dragging the vessel
with him as he goes.
When the barrels stop moving, Quint takes them in close to lasso Jaws’ tail and attempt
to hoist him on the winch, but Jaws turns in a last ditch effort to escape and crashes
onto the deck, and the impact is enough to start sinking the boat.
In a mad fit of fury, Quint takes a harpoon and stabs the shark in the gut, deep enough
for blood to cover his hand.
When Jaws rolls back into the water, Quint’s leg gets caught in the rope tethered to the
harpoon, and he’s pulled overboard.
Jaws is simply trying to get back in the water to be able to breath, but it causes Quint
to end up drowning from his own slip up.
Pretty brutal way to go.
But not as much as the movie though, roll that ****.
Luckily for Chief Brody, he doesn’t need a gun or an oxygen tank to save himself.
In the end, Jaws is merely a mortal shark and dies from his injuries just before getting
the chance to take a bite out of Brody.
The last we see of Jaws is him sinking back towards the depths of the ocean.
In the end, Jaws terrorized the people of Amity and their summer visitors for nearly
an entire month.
The six victims taken were not the only way that the creature wreaked havoc on citizens
though, as it potentially ruined the entire summer season economy, making the upcoming
winter more difficult.
While the film shows Jaws as a ruthless killer, the novel reveals a more realistic depiction
of a shark with some tendencies we can analyse and understand, and others that can still
not be explained.
Hopefully this analysis helps add a layer of reality behind the ocean dwelling terror
that is Jaws.
And by the way, let me know of any other creatures you’d like to see covered here on Horror
History, or what franchise you’d like to see me take on.
Remember to subscribe to CZsWorld for new horrors every week, ring the deathbell for
notifications and I’ll see you in the next one.
Assuming we both survive.