Category Archives: review-movie

Halloween 2k19 :Marathon Retrospective


I’ve loved horror movies for a long time, but I’ve always found it hard to talk about it with others because of my lack of familiarity with the western cannon. As a kid I started off with horror movies like The Ring and The Grudge and subsequently got into Asian horror. Because of this I never ended up watching common American classics like A Nightmare on Elm Street.

This challenge was my chance to play “catch-up” and improve my understanding of western horror history. I thought it’d be hard because of how many slashers I’d have to watch. I’ve never liked blood – it always makes me feel queasy – so slashers were my natural enemy. However, I did look forward to movies like The Silence of the Lambs and The House of the Devil, because I like supernatural and psychological movies and I find them easiest to get lost in.

The biggest part of the challenge I was scared about was actually forcing myself to watch a horror movie everyday and then write a review within the day. Yes, I tell my friends what I think of movies all the time but writing my thoughts out is a lot more time intensive than casually speaking them. My biggest concern was having a competent review for each movie.

Now that the challenge is done- I thought it’d be interesting to go ahead and analyze the results and experience overall. Did I meet expectations? Was it everything I wanted and more? How did my reviews compare to aggregate sites like IMDb? Tune in and find out.

General Statistics

I went to Metacritic and IMDb and found the aggregate ratings for each of the movies I saw. The Metascore on Metacritic uses a scale of 100. I scaled it back down to a scale of 10 to make comparing the numbers easier.

The sample size is only the 32 movies I saw during the challenge, so take the numbers as you will. As I get more reviews up here I can do more robust analyses. This particular retrospective might seem more trivial, but it’s a fun journey nonetheless.

NOTE: Ratings may change as more reviews are added over time so if you view this well after the posted date- keep that in mind.

Title My Rating IMDb Rating MetaCritic User Score MetaCritic Meta Score
Hour of the Wolf 8.5 7.7 N/A N/A
Scream 9.3 7.2 8.8 6.5
The Thing 10.0 8.1 8.8 5.7
Zombieland 8.8 7.6 8.6 7.3
The Shining 10.0 8.4 8.8 6.6
Poltergeist 9.0 7.3 8.5 7.9
Green Room 8.3 7.0 7.2 7.9
The House of the Devil 9.2 6.4 6.9 7.3
Night of the Living Dead 9.5 7.9 8.5 8.9
Texas Chain Saw Massacre 10.0 7.5 8.0 7.5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 9.1 7.5 8.8 7.6
The Cabin in the Woods 9.3 7.0 8.1 7.2
The Silence of the Lambs 10.0 8.6 8.8 8.5
Shaun of the Dead 9.0 7.9 8.7 7.6
In the Mouth of Madness 10.0 7.2 6.8 5.3
Saw 8.1 7.6 8.1 4.6
An American Werewolf in London 9.1 7.5 8.8 7.6
Joker 9.4 8.8 9.2 5.9
Nosferatu 9.5 7.9 N/A 7.9
Cube 9.2 7.2 7.3 6.1
Black Swan 9.4 7.5 8.1 7.9
28 Days Later 9.5 7.6 7.7 7.3
Candyman 10.0 6.6 N/A N/A
Event Horizon 7.4 6.7 7.2 3.5
Friday the 13th 7.2 6.5 5.6 2.2
The Devil’s Backbone 8.8 7.4 8.7 7.8
The Others 8.4 7.6 8.7 7.4
Jaws 10.0 8.0 8.8 8.7
The Lighthouse 10.0 8.3 8.3 8.3
Hell House LLC 8.2 6.4 N/A N/A
Zombieland: Double Tap 7.5 7.2 5.3 5.6
Ringu 9.7 7.2 N/A N/A

Personal Analysis

Based on my ratings you can tell that this month was good for me. Out of the 32 movies I saw 8 movies that I would classify as a 10. Those movies were:

  • The Shining
  • The Texas Chain Saw Massacre
  • The Thing
  • The Silence of the Lambs
  • In the Mouth of Madness
  • Candyman
  • Jaws
  • The Lighthouse

Even though I’d say I’m more willing to give 10’s than other critics, I still find it amazing how many of the movies profoundly impacted me. On top of these 8 “unicorns”, an additional 4 movies made the A+ squad meaning that 37.5% of the movies I saw were good enough for me to want to recommend then to everyone. These additions include:

  • Night of the Living Dead
  • Nosferatu
  • 28 Days Later
  • Ringu

The distribution of these movies genre-wise is also something I’m surprised by. I didn’t think that I would rank any slasher up that highly, but Candyman and Texas Chain Saw Massacre were both so nuanced that I couldn’t help but be entranced by both movies. I love supernatural and psychological movies so that part makes sense.

Genre Count
Supernatural 3
Psychological 3
Slasher 2
Monster 1
Science Fiction 1

The movie I ended up liking the least was Friday the 13th, which I gave a 7.2. After A Nightmare on Elm Street, I was hoping that one of the other great slasher series could give me something meaningful to bite into. Unfortunately, despite having a few nice moments, the movie didn’t hit me the way I wanted it to. It’s funny- before I started the marathon I didn’t want anything to do with the movie, but after being spoiled by some great ones, I started looking forward to the ones on my list. Congrats slasher movies – you got a fan in me.

Relational Analysis

Review Source Mean Median Standard Deviation
Me 9.09 9.25 0.81
IMDb 7.49 7.5 0.61
Metacritic – User 8.03 8.3 0.96
Metacritic- Meta 6.82 7.3 1.56

My friends have always said I’m a film snob, and I’ve always maintained I’m not. But everytime I end up loving a horror movie (The Witch, It Follows, The Babadook…) it ends up being one of those divisive movies that gets good “critic” reviews but not so great user reviews. That’s what made the comparison of the major statistics so surprising.

My ratings were closest to the Metacritic – User ratings and also furthest away from the Metacritic – Meta ratings. It’s also interesting that that’s the only source that had a standard deviation well above 1. It seems like “critics” are more broad compared to a more “in tune” user base. I’d be interested in finding out why that’s the case, but that’s for another time when I have more data and better codding knowledge.

I also wanted to check out just how different my A+ movies differentiated from the way my counterparts ranked them. Maybe my self perceived greats were so good that they elicited similar reactions in others. I’ve excluded Nosferatu, Candyman, and Ringu because they have missing Metacritic data.

Title IMDb Difference Metacritic Meta Difference Metacritic User Difference
The Shining 1.6 1.2 3.4
The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2.5 2.0 2.5
Night of the Living Dead 1.6 1.0 0.6
The Thing 1.9 1.2 4.3
The Silence of the Lambs 1.4 1.2 1.5
In the Mouth of Madness 2.8 3.2 4.7
28 Days Later 1.9 1.8 2.2
Jaws 2.0 1.2 1.3
The Lighthouse 1.7 1.7 1.7

The differences are promising in a certain light. Though my final rating for most of the above titles is higher than my counterparts, their position comparative to other movies on the list remains similar. I may give higher ratings – but those ratings are in line with (for the most part) the trend of rating horror movies. The biggest exceptions to this rule so far are The Shining and In the Mouth of Madness. Both movies are cult classics and I appreciated their depths into darker, more Lovecraftian themes. After looking it up, I found out that they’re part of John Carpenter’s “Apocalypse Trilogy”. When I found out I still had one movie, Prince of Darkness, to watch I felt tremendous jubilation.

In a more general sense, the ratings for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Lighthouse have the closest score distributions out all the movies. The Lighthouse is the most striking given that every source sans myself had given the movie an 8.3.

Review of Writing Style

When I first started writing reviews, I thought the process was overwhelming. I’ve always been someone who just focuses on plot and interpretation. I’ve always appreciated things like score and camera angles but never thought about how they impacted my viewing experience. Trying to find a way to incorporate discussion about all the elements was my first big hurdle.

My earlier reviews like , Review: The Hour of the Wolf, exhibit the issue clearly. When I mention certain things, they come off as static and feel more like statements that have to be there as opposed to streams of natural thought that followed from the previous one. This is mainly because I’m not the best at using commas, so translating my spoken thought into proper written work is… difficult to say the least. If you’ve been reading for a while, you may notice I use a lot of “-“‘s in my work. I don’t know how correct it is, but the feeling it creates feels natural.

Thankfully, my more recent reviews are more fluid, even if the difference isn’t as big as I wanted. Sentences extend for longer and there’s more voice and expression in everything. There’s probably a lot more, but I’m more interested in seeing where my writing is at in a year, so I’ll wait until then to take a deeper look.

Final Takeaway

Overall, this experience was great. Watching a movie and writing a review everyday was challenging but was also incredibly rewarding. I was forced to critically inspect each movie at multiple levels and ended up appreciating the craftsmanship at work.

The hardest part of the process was feeling like there was a constant deadline for each movie. Some of the movies hit emotional beats pretty hard and it was difficult to force myself to watch a movie the next day. Balancing a movie a day on top of work and everyday life was also challenging and something I should’ve prepared around more.

The more serious movies that were playing in theaters proved to be the hardest to review. Joker and The Lighthouse both moved me and brought up a lot of interesting points, but I couldn’t pause, write out my thoughts, and rewind to catch up with certain points like I could do back at home on my PS3.

I’m definitely planning on doing this challenge next year, but now I think I have some good changes to make the process more manageable. I definitely need more fun/cheesy movies to lighten the mood. Being scared and philosophically boomed is great but there’s a charm to less serious movies. At the very least, they would serve as a much needed change in current that would keep the experience fresh.


Review: Ringu

Theatrical Release Poster

To celebrate the end of Halloween and my 2019 Movie Marathon, I decided to close off with one of the most important horror movies to me, on a more personal and nostalgic level. When I saw that Arrow was releasing a Blu-ray restoration of this 1998 classic, I had to buy it and after watching it, I can say that it was worth each every penny. Everything looks crisp and serene and only made the impact of each and every scene more evocative.

Hideo Nakata’s direction and Hiroshi Takahashi’s screenplay serve to make their adaptation of Koji Suzuki’s original book, Ring, more mysterious and eerie. For those of you not familiar with the general plot, the movie follow a Reiko, a reporter researching a story about a cursed videotape that kills anyone who watches it within 7 days. As her investigation continues, she uncovers some disturbing facts, and has to race against time to figure out how to stop the curse.

This film is a great slow burn. The first scene drops the audience in the moment, immediately drawing them into the lore. The lighting in the scene sets the tone- an eerie one at that. As the scene progress, the tension grows, and even upon the end, the lack of resolution and presence of ambiguity kept me on edge. That’s something that’s true of most of the movie. It stays creepy. There’s something that doesn’t feel right as you watch it and on more than one occasion I turned around to look behind my shoulder.

The use of sound makes the journey to certain realizations more dramatic and unsettling. Large portions of the film are in silence, so it feels like anything can drop out. But then when there’s a fearful affect around, the music turns to match that. It never feels cheesy or over the top.

On top of this, the film never uses sound for jump scares. Every scare is “natural”. You see something unnerving on the screen and that’s that. You’re forced to process the phenomena and make sense of it. This helped keep the movie realistic, which is it’s strongest selling point. The characters act urgently because they only have so long to resolve the curse. It’s like a bomb scene in an action movie- but scarier because it’s unknown which neutralizes the normal certainty we have that the problem will actually get resolved. This in conjunction with how nuanced and fleshed out the character interactions are makes us actually care for what’s going on to everyone so their race becomes that much more tense.

One of my favorite parts about the movie is how subtle it is. A lot of dialogue scenes are shot with all relevant characters in frame. I’m used to the over the shoulder dialogue shot or the screen cutting between two characters and the film does do that, but it does so more sparingly. The focus is always on showing the characters interacting with each other. The way they position or respond to each other. A lot of the relationships between characters are never explicitly stated until past the half-way mark of the movie, but, because of excellent direction and writing, they feel rich and reveal a lot. As the film kept going on, I felt like I kept having an epiphany about how something else had just made sense- like a series of light-bulbs were going off – and it made the whole experience thematically more resonant to me.

I only have a few minor complaints about the movie. Because the movie doesn’t adapt the backstory of the book, there’s a ton of mystery and ambiguity regarding the reason for why things are happening. This is fine, and as evidenced by my reviews (ex: The Lighthouse) , I actually love that. However, in the case of this movie, the unresolved issues feel more important to resolve certain thematic points. There are hints at them throughout the film, but they don’t add up enough for my liking. There’s also a lot of exposition in the movie from Ryuji. I know there’s a lot that needs to be explained, but later scenes in the film proved that Nakata had creative ways to do the same, so I wish he did more of that.


TLDR: Ringu is provocative, beautiful, and eerie. Even after having seen the movie multiple times, I’m scared of my T.V. after a late night viewing.

Final Rating: 9.7/10. One of the best horror movies. If you like psychological films or like horror movies that use subtle well-crafted scares, this film is the best.

This review is also part of the Ring series- spoiler analysis will be posted in a longer article at a later point.

Review: Zombieland: Double Tap

Theatrical Release Poster

I’m going to be honest- when I first saw the trailer for this movie earlier on in the year, I thought it was an elaborate prank. A sequel to a movie over 10 years old? Sure, Zombieland was popular, but what would a sequel do for a story that seemed to have ended in a pleasing manner already? Thankfully, Ruben Fleischer’s directorial return in Zombieland: Double Tap, is a fun, over-the-top, and gory zom-com that doesn’t take itself too seriously and should be watched by any fan of the first movie.

The plot follows our main group and some bonus characters as they try and find Little Rock (Breslin) after she’s run off in a fit of adolescent rebellion. The story that follows is predictable for the most part and doesn’t take itself too seriously. To compensate for the lack of innovation, the movie just has fun with itself. The action scenes are bloody and entertaining. The film doubles down on the spectacle – new zombies, more deaths, and more blood. Most of the times this turns out well, and the absurdity is entertaining to watch even if it feels similar. Likewise, a lot of the comedy is based on references and parody specifically in relation to the first movie. Sometimes it comes off as forced or goes on for too long, but this is a rarer issue and didn’t derail my enjoyment too much.

For the most part the acting in this movie suits the tone and brought me back to the feeling I had in the first movie. Harrelson, Eisenberg, and Stone all come exude the characters we know and love. Harrelson still kicks ass but is a teddy bear on the inside. Eisenberg is still a nervous, awkward, rule follower trying to find stability. Stone is still smart-witted, sarcastic, and dealing with her emotions. Breslin feels less compelling as an angsty teen, but thankfully the bonus characters pick up the slack. Deutch’s portrayal of Madison stole the show for me. Almost every time her character was on screen I laughed or chuckled. Rosario Dawson also serves as a great counterbalance to Harrelson and is a fun, if somewhat gimmicky, character.

My issues from the movie stem from two places: the disjointed nature of progression, and the fact that the sequel is set 10 years later. Like I said earlier, the movie doesn’t have a lot of twists in it and feels like a rehash of story beats from the first movie. There are some changes to keep it interesting, but the progression from point to point feels forced. It almost feels like the group travels from one location to another to do a comedy bit or to have a zombie fight and then moves on. My second concern is my primary issue with the film. The ending of the original movie set in stone/pushed characters to certain developmental stages. Given that the main cast has lived with each other for 10 years, one would expect some more growth and change along these lines. Instead, the characters feel like they picked up a few months after the end of the last film. Some of their decisions, even if fun, feel lacking once put in context.


TLDR: Zombieland: Double Tap isn’t revolutionary, but what it doesn’t do in innovation, it makes up for in raunchy comedy and exciting action scenes. Some moments feel out of place from a larger narrative standpoint, but they can’t hold back the adventure at hand.

Final Rating: 7.5/10 . If you liked Zombieland, check this movie out. If you didn’t you won’t find anything here to change your mind. The movie also isn’t too scary, so if you want a fun comedy flick to watch this film more than fills the role.

Go to Page 2 for my spoiler-full thoughts!

Review: One Piece: Stampede

Theatrical Release Poster

I’m going to preface this: If you’ve never watched One Piece or are not fully caught up with at least the Dressrosa Arc, you will either not comprehend the movie or risk spoiling character reveals/powers for yourself. On the other hand, if you’re a fan of the franchise and are fully caught up you’re in for an amazing, fan-service filled roller coaster packed to the brim with tons of characters from all over the 20 year franchise. Takashi Otsuka’s film doesn’t take the franchise to brand new directions, but rather serves as a love letter and a celebration of everything great about the story.

The plot doesn’t do anything special story-wise, but is filled with a ton of fun and theatrics. The crew are invited by the pirate Buena Festa (Yusuke Santamaria) to a secret Pirate festival at Delta Island to celebrate and decompress. Upon arriving, they learn that the island is connected to Gol D. Roger and a secret item of his is up for grabs to whomever finds it. With the pirate king himself being connected to the prize, every pirate at the island is energized and the bout begins.

From the moment the Straw Hats entered the island I couldn’t stop laughing. Every member of the Worst Generation is here and the ensuing race between them and the Straw Hats to the prize is incredibly fun and emblematic of the over-the-top and exciting feeling One Piece is known for. This is something that doesn’t stop for the entire 101 minute runtime. There’s always a new fan favorite approaching the screen and having the interactions we, as fans, have always wanted to see. Imagine a character pool a bit smaller than the one during the Marineford Arc, replace the sadness of that arc with goofy fun and interactions, and you should have a pretty good idea of what the movie is going for. The final group of “heroes” at the end had me screaming like a fanboy at how interesting and epic its composition was.

While there aren’t as many fighting scenes as I would’ve wanted, most of the ones in the movie were dynamic and vibrant. There are quite a few cool set pieces and watching characters casually (or in some cases with great effort) demonstrate their power against them was not only cool, but in some cases, breath-taking. There’s one scene at the ending that had me almost tear up, at how emotionally resonant and beautiful it looked.

The new characters aren’t the most interesting or nuanced. Douglas Bullet (Tsutomu Isobe) is a generic walking power level who’s motivations are just as boring. Thankfully, his devil fruit power is entertaining and his tentative connection to Gol D. Roger is interesting, even if it feels underdeveloped. There were some cool things that were being attempted to flesh Bullet out more, but they came a bit too late in the movie to feel as meaningful as they should have been. Buena Festa feels intriguing at the beginning, but his motivations don’t go anywhere too interesting by the time they’re actually revealed. Thankfully, the villains are not the focus and are used primarily as a tool to showcase different characters/interactions.

There is a post credits scene so DO NOT get up and leave before it plays. It’s genuinely the spirit of One Piece on display and you’d be remiss if you missed it. It definitely brought a smile to my face.


TLDR: One Piece: Stampede is a beautiful love letter to fans of the 20 year running mammoth of a franchise. It doesn’t do anything revolutionary, but it has a ton of fun, cute, and emotionally resonant moments for fans of the series.

Final Rating: 8.8/10.If you enjoy One Piece watch the movie

Go to Page 2 for my spoiler-full thoughts!

Review: The Lighthouse

Theatrical Release Poster


I’ve been excited for The Lighthouse since it’s release at the Cannes Film Festival in 2019. Robert Egger’s previous 2015 work, The Witch, is one of my favorite horror movies of the past decade so describing my state of mind as excited might actually be putting it a tad lightly. After watching the movie, I’m happy to say the movie not only delivered, but exceeded expectations. Bravo.

The plot follows Epharim Winslow (Robert Pattinson) , a young man who’s sent out to join and work under Thomas Wake (Willem Dafoe) as a wickie. From the start of the movie we can see friction between our two main leads. Pattinson is reserved and wants to keep to himself. Dafoe on the other hand is a authoritative, talkative, alcoholic who constantly seeks to get Pattinson to open up and join along. The rest of the plot is just the ensuing dialogue and the results of staying on an isolated island. Despite this, there was not a single moment I was bored or uninterested with what was going on. Every interaction, every visual, every little outburst kept my attention glued to the screen.

The movie constantly plays with your emotions . One moment might be ripe with violence and cause you to feel tense about what’s going to happen. Immediately, a humorous scene will follow creating a perverse laughter. There’s no way to predict what’s going to happen next which makes every moment feel like an experimental must watch. This is fueled by both the respective leads phenomenal acting. Pattinson goes through a wide range of emotion and watching his development from an aloft and quite wickie, to a man losing his sense of self and sanity is a treat. Dafoe is a perfect compliment to Pattinson and conveys a mythical authoritative figure while simultaneously taking pleasure in farting/fart jokes. Yes you read that right- the film even has fart jokes. I’ll take “Setups I’d never see in a horror movie” for 500, Alex. Once certain twists and reveals are set up, the film becomes even more nuanced and allows for different and nuanced takes from the audience. You could watch this with a group of friends and everyone could take something different from the plot.

Aesthetically the movie shoots everything out of the ballpark. Camera movement is fluid and never draws outward attention. Instead, it almost feels like it operates seamlessly in the background. Pan and tilt shots move geographically through the lighthouse, but based on twists in the movie might indicate something else entirely. The black and white nature of the movie makes the extreme shadows and radiance of the actual lighthouse that much more bright. It helps amplify the difference between them but also makes the film feel like it was filmed in the late 1890’s early 1900’s. Mark Korven’s score is also precise- it’s bombastic and loud when it needs to be, but it also plays a subtle calming role in other scenes. It only ever accentuates and never feels out of place.


TLDR: The Lighthouse is a beautiful, wholly original piece that’ll have you asking what’s real and what’s going on for a lot of it’s run time. It has fun with itself and it’s ambiguous and mystical nature lends it to multiple interpretations post viewing.

Final Rating: 10/10. This is the best movie I’ve seen so far in 2019. Eggers beautifully merges horror, comedy, and psychological introspection and delivers it in an aesthetically rich package. If you want to see one of the years best, or enjoy psychological movies that play with reality/religious mythos this movie is right up your alley.

There’s no spoiler section- I’ll be posting a more full analysis and a discussion of the movie with friends at later times.

Review: Hell House LLC

Theatrical Release Poster

I’m going to be honest- I’ve wanted to do a review for this movie the moment I watched it the first time 3 years ago, but I didn’t have this outlet yet. When I realized I had to do a bonus movie, I thought might as well re-watch and review this gem of a find. Stephen Cognetti’s found footage flick, Hell House LLC, is a well acted, tense, and genuinely eerie story.

The film is presented as a fake documentary and feels incredibly real. The news clip and YouTube videos both feel like the medium they’re attempting to emulate which creates an immersive “real life” feeling to everything that’s going on. The cuts between old footage and interviews foreshadows events but also creates this sense of tension because you know awful things are going to happen. The film takes advantage of this by delaying the points of discovery so when they do happen you’re still not quite ready for them.

Every member of the main cast feels real and well grounded. Their decisions make sense and their skepticism is justified given the way certain events play out. You can feel the tension between the group members and watching the schisms form and develop all while feeling natural. The group’s desperation feels almost palpable. In particular Gore Abrams performance as Paul creates a lot of moments of levity and makes the descent of the group into the awful situation more pronounced.

I enjoyed that the film presents a lot of subtle clues about certain character motivations and the nature of the supernatural elements of the movie. The looser “rules” and general associations with satanism are more than enough to create a creepy aesthetic I loved that there were no stupid jump scares. We see scary things from the corner of our eyes and that in end of itself is the scare. Thinking about what’s actually going on. I found myself constantly scanning the screen for changes from the previous scene to see if a new scare had presented itself.

Unfortunately, the end of the movie leaves some critical questions unanswered which stands out more than a normal movie because the sense of realism in editing and decision making had made a lot of sense before. Some of these decisions create cool scares, but I think they ruin some narrative integrity and make the movie feel less intelligent than it had been up till that point. Also the constant usage of the “glitch” effect got really annoying by the end of the movie and felt like unnecessary visual flair that distracted from what was actually going on.


TLDR: Hell House LLC is a deceptively fun found footage horror film, that stays believable and creepy for the majority of it’s run time. The scares feel natural and despite the bumpy ending, I was left satisfied at the end of the movie.

Final Rating: 8.2/10. If you like found footage movies or want to see a horror movie without an overuse of bad and false jump scares check this movie out.

Go to Page 2 for my spoiler-full thoughts!

Review: Jaws

Theatrical Release Poster

The moment Jaws starts and we’re treated to John Williams dramatic and tension laced theme music, I knew I was in for a suspenseful ride. Steven Spielberg’s deceptively simple creature-feature, follows Chief Brody (Roy Scheider), Quint (Robert Shaw), and Matt (Richard Dreyfuss) as they go on a journey to capture a ravenous great white terrorizing Amity island.

Like I said earlier, the music in the movie is immaculate. Whenever the theme starts and we’re treated to the underwater camera shots of people dangling in the water, I felt a sense of dread. The music keeps the tension up and constantly kept me on edge. The best part however, was how varied the sound was during the entire film. The scary parts are filled with tension but there are adventurous and joyous sections that introduce some much needed levity in the movie. This helps keep each scary moment fresh and surprising.

Spielberg went through great lengths to build up each of the characters. Chief Brody is a man of the law who wants to do the right thing but is tied down by the bureaucratic rules of Mayor Vaughn (Murray Hamilton). He’s beholden to the executive’s control and as such innocent people end up suffering. Matt is like the technocratic elite. He’s rich, fully reliant on brand new technology, and is sure of his own thoughts. Quint is a working class man- eccentric and stuck in his ways. The characters and their motivations are written in a complex and nuanced way and allow for multiple readings. As their interactions play out, we can see how their ideological views impact their solutions to the situation. However, the biggest impact of this well written character development, is that it makes the horrifying scenes more emotionally resonant, because I grew to actually enjoy the characters and wanted them to survive.

I was scared for most of the movie. The moment I saw the first gruesome shark kill and the remains of the body, I felt scared every time I saw a character enter the water. Nobody ever feels safe and anytime someone was in the water I immediately started shaking as the all too familiar theme started playing in the background. Because the shark isn’t shown that often it never feels fake. Even though this movie is over 4 decades old it feels realistic and believable. The blood and gore is gruesome and made my stomach churn as I saw it. It’s used sparingly and to great effect.


TLDR: Jaws is a great multi-genre horror film that tackles deep and complex issues through wonderfully written characters and well timed suspenseful scares. Though the movie was over 2 hours long I didn’t feel it’s length and was enthralled for the entirety of the run time.

Final Rating: 10/10. I’m scared of going into the ocean now which means the movie did more than a good job of terrifying me. If you like adventures, thrillers, or creature features then you need to watch this movie.

Go to Page 2 for my spoiler-full thoughts!