Cue Approaching-Shark Dread Music—Our Exclusive Preview of Jaws in Terrifying, Remastered Hi-Def


Courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.

People of a certain age will remember the all-out terror incited by Jaws, which hit theaters in 1975 with uncanny suspense and a soundtrack that put dread to the sound of violins. If you were a kid in the late 70s, the film was apt to have spooked you enough that you didn’t feel safe puttering around the deep end of your neighbor’s pool, and that was before someone—as someone inevitably would—began mimicking the sound of the film’s famous theme. If there  were ever a movie that scared you as much through your ears as through your eyes, it was Jaws.

But now we have the opportunity to experience the visual scares anew—in a long-awaited high-def edition, one of the landmark horror films of the modern cinematic age has crossed over from a purely fantastical, horror-trope-friendly genre picture to something far more naturalistic. Watching it now gives the feeling of entering the frame, such is the level of detail. Previously washed-out colors have been restored with a vibrancy befitting a long, sun-dappled New England afternoon. The ocean—a character unto itself and, really, the shark’s partner in crime—is now painted in near-orgiastic gradations of blue and green.

“We had some damage to some frames and there was quite a bit of color correcting to do,” says Mike Daruty, the senior vice president of technical operations at Universal. Even though Jaws, at 37 years old, is by no means a relic—“and it’s been stored properly for its entire life, unlike maybe a film from the 30s,” Daruty adds—an A/B contrast with earlier home-video versions of the movie is striking. There were even a few jagged, shark-like tears in the original negative. “It’s a digital process, fixing tears,” Daruty continues. “We scan the frame in, and then we either steal from previous frames before, or after, or we digitally paint, almost like a Photoshop, in high-resolution.”

Purists and film historians will be glad to note that nothing has been added to or subtracted from the original work of art; there are no additional tasty victims for our rogue shark, or lost romantic plotlines. This is just a refresh. Still, never has terror looked so lambently poetic, as if each shade of the latest wave is beckoning you to new depths of fear.

Courtesy of Universal Studios Home Entertainment.