The Science of Monsters

Based on Peter Benchley’s 1974 novel, Jaws’s journey to the screen was not an easy one. The film quickly went over budget because of its ambitious creature designs. The animatronic sharks developed for the shoot malfunctioned so often that director Steven Spielberg chose to rely on suggestion, as well as composer John Williams’s iconic score, to stir dread in viewers’ hearts. This choice ultimately paid off, an example of the shadowy, less-is-more horror filmmaking that critics love. While the larger-than-life shark in Jaws is memorable, the film itself is a behemoth. Considered the first summer blockbuster, Jaws opened in over four hundred and fifty theaters after an expensive promotional campaign. Because of its massive success, this model of opening to a wide, summer audience became an American tradition. Actor and comedian Jody Kujawa recalls seeing the movie as a kid:

I remember seeing Jaws as a child on television. My parents had the Peter Benchley book which I had read three times and spent hours looking at the cover. It was an absolute thrill to see this film for the first time, watching it come to life. But my greatest thrill happened this last summer when a local theater was showing it for a mere $5. I cleared a night and went to see it. If you ever get the chance to see it on a big screen, do it. It’s a whole new experience. It’s the way it was meant to be seen. After all, it created the summer blockbuster genre.

A real-life shark attack was the inspiration for Jaws. In New Jersey, four people were killed and one injured by shark attacks over twelve days in July of 1916. Although author Peter Benchley denies the connection, the incidents in New Jersey are mentioned in his novel. Parallel to the novel and movie plot, people were encouraged to keep going to the beaches even after the first attack. The State Fish Commissioner of Pennsylvania, in regard to the first victim, was quoted as saying:

The jaws of a shark.

Despite the death of Charles Vansant and the report that two sharks having been caught in that vicinity recently, I do not believe there is any reason why people should hesitate to go in swimming at the beaches for fear of man-eaters. The information in regard to the sharks is indefinite and I hardly believe that Vansant was bitten by a man-eater. Vansant was in the surf playing with a dog and it may be that a small shark had drifted in at high water, and was marooned by the tide. Being unable to move quickly and without food, he had come in to bite the dog and snapped at the man in passing.

Four more attacks later occurred along the New Jersey shore, causing panic that led to massive shark hunts and an emergence of the shark as a symbol of danger.

Prior to 1916, it wasn’t believed that a shark would, or could, attack a human fatally. The New York Times reported that “the foremost authority on sharks in this country has doubted that any shark ever attacked a human being, and has published his doubts, but the recent cases have changed his view.” Newspaper cartoonists across the country began using sharks as imagery for politicians, German U-boats, and even polio.

We are familiar with sharks and their attacks through the news, media, and our beloved “Shark Week.” What are some creatures from the deep that may not be so recognizable to us? The giant squid is a deep ocean-dwelling squid that can grow up to forty-three feet long. Tales of these squid may have led to the legend of the Kraken, a sea monster who lives in the sea near Norway. Kraken have been featured in numerous films and stories including Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) and a Georges Méliès film entitled Under the Seas (1907). The footage used was of an octopus in a bathtub attacking a toy ship. Talk about practical effects! Even Alfred Tennyson wrote about the legendary Kraken in this sonnet:¹

Below the thunders of the upper deep;

Far far beneath in the abysmal sea,

His ancient, dreamless, uninvaded sleep

The Kraken sleepeth: faintest sunlights flee

About his shadowy sides; above him swell

Huge sponges of millennial growth and height;

And far away into the sickly light,

From many a wondrous grot and secret cell

Unnumber’d and enormous polypi

Winnow with giant arms the slumbering green.

There hath he lain for ages, and will lie

Battening upon huge seaworms in his sleep,

Until the latter fire shall heat the deep;

Then once by man and angels to be seen,

In roaring he shall rise and on the surface die.