Jaws

Jaws is an unforgettable film experience for anyone has seen it. The essential aqua horror, it is a tale of deep blue. Jaws is a giant great white shark that terrorizes the waters of Amity Island, New England during the summer of 1975. It is based off of Peter Benchley's book with the same title. A girl goes missing one night while skinny dipping in the ocean at a party. The police come to the conclusion she is killed by a shark. A young boy during the 4th of July also goes missing at the beach one day and the hunt for the shark begins. Brody, Quint, and Hooper go out in the Orca in an attempt to slay the beast. Quint slowly becomes obsessed with killing the shark and destroys many of the boats bare essentials in an attempt to force the trio to have to destroy the shark. Hooper goes into a dive cage in an attempt to stab Jaws with a drug on a spear to kill it. The dive cage is destroyed and Hooper finds safety on shore. The shark attacks the back of the boat and Quint falls into the monster's "Jaws". Brody shoves a scuba tank into it's mouth when another attack occurs. The shark barrels forward to Brody and he shoots the scuba tank, blowing the shark to smitherens. 

There are many elements to this film that contributed to it's grand success. The source material definitely plays a part. Steven Spielburg changed the story to a degree, editing the first two parts of the novel's story and keeping the third. Another important element, The fact that he does not actually show the audience the shark until the latter part of the film. This creates great suspense that carries throughout the film until the final reveal. The score by John Williams masterfully creates an eerie and terrifying vibe as well. A simple two low tones would terrifying every beach swimmer for generations. Spielburg uses William's score to reveal the antagonist's presence without revealing it's identity. Steven Spielburg wasn't a household name with his earlier films. After Jaws, he was widely known as a great director and went on to make other great movies like the Jurassic park series and Indiana Jones series.