8 Horror Movies That Told The Audience Too Much
7. Jaws: The Revenge - The Shark's True Motives
Why oh why couldn't Jaws: The Revenge had just been a movie about a shark causing so much panic for Ellen Brody?
That element of the narrative was included, of course. It's just all of the extra gunk on top of it that we really, really didn't need to be told about. And because we were told about it, that made Jaws: The Revenge a head-scratcher of a movie on a multitude of different levels.
For those who bailed out on the Jaws franchise before this fourth outing swam to the silver screen, Jaws: The Revenge does indeed find Ellen Brody stalked by a great white shark and being haunted in her dreams in PTSD fashion at the horrors her family have already been through due to these apex predators.
The thing is, the movie does this by moving the action from the fictional locale of Amity Island near Martha's Vineyard, to the warm, warm waters of the Bahamas. Those warm, warm waters mean it's extremely rare for any shark activity in the Bahamas, which in turn is one strike against Jaws: The Revenge.
Where the film really tells us too much, however, is in how the shark stalking Ellen Brody in Jaws: The Revenge is doing so due to a grudge against the Brody family. Yes, we're supposed to believe that Ellen's husband Martin Brody blowing up a shark at the end of Jaws, and then electrocuting a shark at the end of Jaws 2, has led to a shark grudge against the Brody clan.
Not just that, the same shark stalking Ellen in the Bahamas is the same one who killed her son Sean in Amity at the start of the movie.
*Sigh*
To think, if they held back on informing the audience of the whole grudge stuff, there may have been a chance of a half-decent shark picture here.