Asthmatic sharks and 18-foot bears: the movies that were inspired by ‘Jaws'

Boston Globe

a day ago

Get Starting Point
A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday.
Enter Email
Sign Up
Richard Dreyfuss (left) and Robert Shaw watch the shark emerge from the water in "Jaws."
Getty Images/Getty
Advertisement
As part of our tribute to the 50th anniversary of 'Jaws,' here's a notebook on some of the movies its success hath wrought. (I'm saving the sequels to 'Jaws' for another notebook.) So that it doesn't feel like I'm picking on the much-maligned shark, baby or otherwise, I am splitting this into the two most popular pitches filmmakers threw out in the hopes of getting an 'homage' made. Let's start with:
'It's 'Jaws', but with a __________!'
Spielberg's ordeal with Bruce, the faulty mechanical shark, initially put producers off financing shark movies. Instead, filmmakers had to search elsewhere in the animal kingdom for their man-eating predators. Boy, did they find plenty of suitable stand-ins!
Advertisement
In 1976, Louisville-based filmmaker William Girdler had the biggest success of his career with
'Grizzly,'
the first official nod to 'Jaws.' Girdler was no stranger to being accused of ripping off popular movies — Warner Bros. sued over his 1974 film, 'Abby,' a.k.a. 'The Black version of 'The Exorcist.'' Because of its low budget, that movie made a lot of money before Warner Bros. had it pulled from theaters.
Universal had no such power, as the makers of 'Grizzly' could plead plausible deniability: Its killer was an 18-foot grizzly bear. However, the similarities were so recognizable that the pundits referred to the movie as 'Paws.'
Girdler's bear changed sizes multiple times throughout the movie, but is never seen at the advertised height. It was also played by an actual Kodiak bear named Teddy, who was 7 feet shorter than advertised.
Like 'Jaws,' the bear's victims included scantily clad women and a kid. Also like 'Jaws,' there's a shot of a disembodied leg, watery jump scares, and the bad guy meets an explosive demise. Both films are surprisingly graphic for their PG rating (though 'Grizzly' is gorier).
The most important thing to note, however, is that, like 'Jaws,' 'Grizzly' was a huge hit. I saw it in theaters, so I did my part for the box office grosses.
Irish actor Richard Harris in a June 1982 file photo.
PA
I also saw 1977's
'Orca'
in theaters. Its inclusion here is a bit of dirty pool on my part, because the Dino De Laurentiis production isn't exactly ''Jaws' with a killer whale.' It's more like 'Death Wish' with a killer whale. After killing a great white shark, a male orca sees his wife and baby brutally killed by heartless Richard Harris's boat crew.
Advertisement
The whale seeks a deserved revenge on Harris and the fishing village he inhabits, killing most of the crew and busting up fuel pipes. Targets includes Bo Derek who, like the guy in 'Jaws' and the kid in 'Grizzly,' winds up losing a leg. Eventually, the orca finds Harris and gets justice for everyone who hated Harris's
Shelley Winters in the 1970 film "Bloody Mama," directed by Roger Corman.
American International Pictures
The same year, American International Pictures gave us
'Tentacles,'
where beachgoers are attacked by — you guessed it! — a gigantic octopus. This sucker kills people real good, too. An all-star cast includes John Huston as a hero and Henry Fonda as the bad guy. Shelley Winters costars as Huston's sister. Bo Hopkins plays the Quint stand-in, an expert who sends his killer whales to turn that octopus into pulpo.
Paul Bartel in the 1978 movie "Piranha," directed by Joe Dante.
New World Pictures
It's no surprise that two of the most entertaining 'Jaws' homages were written by legendary filmmaker John Sayles. In 1978, Sayles worked on
'Piranha'
for Roger Corman's New World Pictures. B-movie mainstays Barbara Steele, Kevin McCarthy, and Dick Miller costar with a school of ravenous, genetically engineered piranha. Director Joe Dante doesn't scrimp on the gory mayhem; the piranha chew up an entire lake's worth of spring breakers and summer camp kids. Alas, the fishes couldn't devour the other Jaws rip-off that opened the same summer, 'Jaws 2.'
Sayles also wrote 1980's Robert Forster vehicle,
'Alligator.'
The script brings to life the urban legend about baby alligators flushed down the commode. This one grows to gargantuan size due to discarded growth hormones in the sewer. After chowing down on sewer workers and an obnoxious tabloid reporter (his demise is truly terrifying), the gator takes to the streets. Victims include cops and an unlucky kid tossed into a swimming pool (children do not fare well in these movies).
Advertisement
A maid at a swanky wedding gets bitten in the worst possible place by the gator before it suffers the same fate as the shark in 'Jaws.' Speaking of sharks, that leads us to the second movie pitch heard at studios everywhere:
'Jaws was a hit! Let's make another movie with a shark!'
Ignoring the 'Jaws' sequels leads me first to 1977's
'Tintorera,'
a Mexican film starring Susan George ('Straw Dogs') as a Brit touring in Mexico. You probably want to hear about the asthmatic tiger shark (it sounds like an obscene phone call) chewing up skinny-dippers, but trust me: The homoerotic throuple George forms with an American businessman and a Mexican swimming instructor is the real draw. This trashy movie is loaded with sex and full frontal nudity. No wonder the shark is panting!
Four years later, an Italian film called
'Great White'
opened to good business in American theaters. I remember seeing the poster and thinking 'wow, that looks a lot like 'Jaws'!' You know who else had that exact thought? Universal Pictures. They
Samuel L. Jackson in 2019.
Jordan Strauss/Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP
Fast-forward 18 years to the best film about a shark since 'Jaws,' Renny Harlin's
'Deep Blue Sea.'
Mutant CGI sharks attack an underwater facility, but don't worry! Samuel L. Jackson is the star of this movie. He even gets a rousing speech about how he's going to kick some shark fin. That speech ends with one of the most shocking (and hilarious) jump scares ever shown to a stunned audience.
Advertisement
Another 21st-century badass, Jason Statham, takes on Bruce the Shark's ancestor, the megalodon, in 2018's
'The Meg.'
Yet another research facility is in danger, this time from a 75-foot-long CGI effect. You get two Spielberg rip-offs in one film: 'Jaws' and 'Jurassic Park'! And just like those two movies, 'The Meg' spawned its own rip-off of a sequel.
Last, but not least is
'Open Water,'
an anticlimactic bore that made me think of Quint's magnificent speech about the USS Indianapolis shark attack. An unlikable married pair of scuba divers are left stranded in shark-infested waters. All the movie does is wait for them to get eaten. It's a long wait.
Odie Henderson is the Boston Globe's film critic.