Terror in Spielberg's Jaws

Terror in Spielberg's Jaws

The film ‘Jaws’ exemplifies the statement ‘Sublime terror rests in the

unseen- the ultimate horror’. Some people would say that dismemberment

and gore is needed to terrorise an audience, but this only shocks and

disgusts viewers. A horror film should therefore make the audience

imagine the terror in order to maximise the fear factor.

Many horror films nowadays use similar techniques to those used by

Spielberg in the film ‘Jaws’. They use techniques such as framing and

mise-en-scene in order to create something called safe space and

unsafe space. Safe space is the space that the camera is looking at.

It is where there is no danger and nothing dreadful would be expected

to take place, which is why it is called safe space. Safe space is

invaded by unsafe space and makes the place threatening as something

terrible is about to occur. It is by using these techniques and

through creating this effect that Spielberg has succeeded in making

‘Jaws’ such a legendary film. Another example of this effect is the

shower scene from ‘Psycho’ by Alfred Hitchcock. Janet Leigh who plays

the main character and who was quite a famous actress in the 60’s is

taking a shower and as the audience, you wouldn’t anticipate that

something terrible would happen this early to the ‘main character’. As

she is taking a shower, a shadow produced by the low-key lighting

enters the safe space and murders her. All that is seen is the knife

and the murderer stabbing at her but not actually piercing through her

skin. This meant that the audience had to rely on their imagination to

see the murderer, which is what the technique of space and unsafe...

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films in the olden days used to be about witchcraft, monsters,

werewolves and vampires that were maybe set in an ancient castle on

top of a cliff as people used to believe in all these fantasies.

A good horror film would have be like a roller coaster because it

would need to keep building up the tension and releasing it every

little while to make it interesting for an audience to watch. It is

also thought to be like a roller coaster because you do not know what

is coming next, which is similar to how some horror films are

presented. This is a key factor which makes horror films like ‘Jaws’

successful. In addition, ‘Jaws’ exploits filming techniques and other

methods and combines them well together to make the film realistic.

These combined factors terrorize the audience as a whole, making

‘Jaws’ awe-inspiring.