10 Horror Movie Villains You Didn't Know Were Based On Real-Life Monsters

Spielberg’s giant man-eating shark Bruce is one of the most memorable characters in the history of film. Jaws, based on a book of the same name, tells the story of one giant man-eating great white shark wreaking havoc on the beaches of a New England resort town. When local beach-goers began noticing body parts rolling in with the tides, the town’s police chief, Martin Brody, pushes to close the beaches, while Mayor Larry Vaughn fights to keep them open. With summer just around the corner, Vaughn is more concerned with the town’s economy than some piddly little shark.

Well, that “piddly little shark” turned out to be one giant man-eating monster. Over a span of weeks, Bruce continuously cruises the beach, chomping up swimmers left and right until a professional shark hunter and an oceanographer take on the beast. Jaws’ Bruce is not the first time giant shark came to dinner on the East Coast shores. In 1916, five swimmers lost their lives to one angry beast just off of Jersey Shore.

In less than a fortnight, the bloodthirsty beast terrorized beachgoers - and even lakegoers. The shark was not deterred by the safety nets installed against it as it swam more than a mile inland to lie in wait in a local watering hole. Making an appetizer of an 11-year-old before moving onto bigger prey, the shark managed to kill the person coming to retrieve aforementioned appetizer's body. That same day, after one last human dessert, a hunter caught and gutted a shark full of human bones. Even though the human bones in the beast were never conclusively identified, the shark attacks stopped.