Who would’ve thought that the 4th film in the Jaws series would be this weird, violent, and horny?
In 1975, Spielberg changed cinema forever with Jaws. In 1987, Michael Caine bought a pretty sweet house, and the insanity of Jaws: The Revenge was unleashed on an unsuspecting and overall non-plussed audience. It joined a series of sequel films that most are willing to forget exist, with each acting as shoddier and shoddier xerox’s of the stone cold classic original.
But, what if I were to tell you that Jaws: The Revenge, the last of the sequels before Spielberg put his foot down and put a kibosh on the whole thing, is actually not some studio finagled, audience scored husk of a film, but an incredibly weird, intensely violent, and confusingly horny film that somehow ducked under censors, studio oversight, and good taste to become something truly ill-advised and unique?
Look, before anyone starts thinking I’ve completely lost my mind, I’ll be upfront here; Jaws: The Revenge is not a “good” movie. It is an overall janky film that feels stitched together from like 30 different half pitches, and spends way too much time following around the Brody family as they sorta just wander around a nameless Caribbean island. It’s a bit inert as a Jaws film, even when not being compared to the original.
But, what sets Jaws: The Revenge apart from his predecessors is how genuinely insane it is. In regards to the plot, The Revenge was a classic example of a film that had gone through pitch exhaustion. Per director Joseph Sargent, the plot of Jaws: The Revenge, that a great white shark was specifically targeting the Brody family, was a preposterous idea born out of creatively burned-out minds, that was pitched after so many had already been turned down. To everyone’s amazement, they got the green light, and, not looking to go through any more pitches, the screenplay started to come together, which is when the real insanity began.
While what ends up on screen is enough of a headscratcher, with the whole revenge seeking fish and the shift from Amity to the Bahamas, the real weirdo stuff existed in the details. While only tangentially in the film, several different plot points were introduced in the many drafts written trying to nail down The Revenge’s story. Most of them are genuinely fucking insane; The shark is chasing the Brody family because of a Voodoo curse! Ellen Brody has a psychic connection with the shark! Michael Caine’s affable love interest is an out-and-out drug smuggler!
While the meat of these plot points aren’t present in the finished film (just the novelization), the pieces are 100% still there. Voodoo is mentioned as the reason for the shark’s rampage! Ellen 100% has a psychic connection to the shark that is never explained! Hoagie (Michael Caine’s character) flies “dirty laundry” (wink, wink). All the really out-there stuff is still in the film’s DNA, even if it is only fragments.
Now, everything I’ve said up to this point still leans more towards “a bad movie with an insane plot is still a bad movie”. But, what really sets The Revenge apart, or at least emphasises the quirks of the story, is how absolutely weird everyone is. Ellen Brody, a grieving mother, quickly shifts into a How Stella Got Her Groove Back the minute she shows up on the island, spending a majority of the film being wine-and-dined by Hoagie (also, there is a grown man named “Hoagie” in this). Michael, her surviving son, is deeply concerned by this, and edges quickly into Oedipal territory as he leers from the shadows like a voyeur watching his mother kiss Hoagie goodnight, or making sure to tell her “she deserves so much better” while slow-dancing with her. Then there is Carla, Michael’s wife, who apparently finds all this mommy obsession deeply arousing, and continues to proposition him for sex whenever he gets to leering again. To top it off, you’ve got Michael Caine clearly island drunk the entire shoot, and Mario Van Peebles doing the most cartoonish Jamaican accent he can muster. Everyone is in a completely different movie, and seem genuinely shocked whenever they are reminded that their in a Jaws film.
But, to offset all that weirdness, the actual shark attacks here are pretty phenomenal, arguably the best in the series outside of the original. While the actual mechanical shark is a bit of a joke, the violence it perpetrates is not. The big fish of Revenge absolutely annihilates what it kills, shooting geysers of gore and leaving bloody stumps. While there are really only 3 attack scenes here, each are incredibly well choreographed and shot, filled with color, dynamic action, and slow motion moments of carnage.
The opening kill is the best version of this, as we watch (SPOILER) Sean Brody lose his arm in Amity bay. The whole sequence looks like it was pulled from a Giallo, as the darkness of the bay is only illuminated by the twinkling lights of the town behind, and the red light of the boat’s dash. While Sean is being attacked, we cut between the gore and a scene of young children singing Christmas hymns. It all ends with Sean, pleading for his life, being quietly pulled down into the depths. It is a jarring, stylistic death scene that completely resets your expectations of a Jaws movie in the opening minutes.
While it starts more classically stylistic, boy oh boy, it does not end that way (Spoilers ahead for the bug fuck insane ending this has). Instead, The Revenge ends the only way it could; shark jousting! Yes, the final confrontation between Ellen and Bruce The 4th is somehow more insane than anything before it. You see, now not only can the shark crest from the water and stand roughly 9 feet tall, but it also roars like a bear!
But don’t worry, Ellen is steering a schooner, meaning she essentially has a very large spear at the end of the boat, and boy howdy, is she going to use it. Somehow channeling the spirit of her dead husband (The Revenge has gone completely off the rails by this point), Ellen rams the boat directly into the shark, which causes the apparent dynamite in its stomach to explode, making sure our 4th outing with Jaws ends with the explosiveness that it needs.
As the credits roll, it should become apparent that The Revenge is really unlike anything else, let alone any of the Jaws films. It is a completely strange mix of absurdist plot details, strange characterizations, and surprise ultra violence. It is janky, weirdly paced, and surprisingly cheap looking. But, even at its slowest (this really does just spend most of the 2nd act watching these actors and actresses get drunk on a tropical island), this is never not entertaining; you’re always only a few minutes away from something truly weird. And, honestly, what else could you ask for from the 4th Jaws film?
