Jaws (franchise) Jaws (franchise) Jaws is an American natural horror film series that started with a 1975 film that expanded into three sequels, a theme park ride, and other tie-in merchandise, based on a 1974 novel. The main subject of the saga is a great white shark, and its attacks on people in specific areas of the United States. The Brody family is featured in all of the films as the primary antithesis to the shark. The original film was based on a novel written by Peter Benchley, which itself was inspired by the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916. Benchley adapted
Jaws (novel) plot. It's boring, pointless, listless; if there's a trite turn to make, "Jaws" will make that turn." An article in "The Listener" criticized the plot, stating the "novel only has bite, so to say, at feed time," and these scenes are "naïve attempts at whipping along a flagging story-line." Andrew Bergman of "The New York Times Book Review" felt that despite the book serving as "fluid entertainment", "passages of hollow portentousness creep in" while poor scene "connections [and] stark manipulations impair the narrative." Nevertheless, some reviewers found "Jaws"'s description of the shark attacks entertaining. John Spurling of the "New Statesman"