Steven Spielberg's classic Jaws is without a doubt the best shark movie ever made, but there's a decades-old debate about whether or not it's horror. Jaws is, of course, the movie that basically created the idea of the summer blockbuster, which Hollywood has been using as one of its driving concepts for well over 40 years at this point. Whether that's a good thing is personal opinion, but it certainly marked a change when it came to studio planning.
Beyond its success, Jaws is perhaps most notable now for holding up magnificently. Lots of older movies can be hard to watch for younger audiences, due to changes in pacing and plot conventions, but Jaws remains as exceptional today as ever. The three main characters are excellently portrayed, and Spielberg shows why he went on to become one of the greatest directors of all time, even if his work gravitates toward popcorn fare.
Jaws also spawned multiple bad sequel movies, but thankfully, they've proved unable to tarnish the original. Jaws' greatness isn't really up for debate, but its status as a horror movie sure seems to be. Oddly, it's an issue that both sides are quite passionate and steadfast about, with those who classify Jaws as horror quite insistent it's part of the genre, and those who say Jaws isn't horror offering up lots of reasons as to why that isn't the case. It's a complex issue, and worth discussing.
Jaws Is One Of The Most Terrifying Movies Ever Made
Those browsing for a movie to watch on the streaming service of their choice - or those old enough to remember strolling down the aisles at their local video store - will find that Jaws is almost never included among horror movies. It's commonly classified as a high-seas adventure, or maybe a suspense thriller, which itself sometimes feels like a label people use when they think a movie is horror but don't want to admit it. Yet, horror is usually closely linked with scaring the audience, and if that's a genre measuring stick, Jaws meets that requirement in spades and is in fact one of the most terrifying movies ever.
Sure, Jaws has lighter moments, such as when the unlikely shark-hunting trio bonds on Quint's boat, but when it gets scary, it doesn't hold back. The death of young Alex Kintner, while relatively bloodless onscreen, is both every parent and every swimmer's worst nightmare. Then there's of course the scene where Ben Gardner's severed head is discovered, one of the most infamous jump scares of all time. Not to mention the iconic scene where the shark is seen in full for the first time, shocking Brody, or even the opening sequence, in which an unfortunate skinny-dipper is eaten alive while screaming. Topping the horrific buffet of scary content off is Quint being slowly devoured by the great white as his boat sinks. If horror is scary, Jaws is horror.
Why Jaws Isn't Considered Horror
This is definitely the side of the debate about Jaws being horror or not that's harder to quantify. While Jaws certainly does have some action and adventure elements, and plenty of human drama, at the same time, there's no rule that says horror has to fit in a neat little box and be a standard slasher or haunted house movie. Jaws is also one of those odd movies that, like The Silence of The Lambs, some people seem averse to calling horror due to the fact that it's well-made, well-acted, and well-written. Such people may only associate horror with being B-grade movies, but that doesn't mean the genre is limited to such fare.
It's understandable enough why studio Universal Pictures might want to avoid the horror label, as sadly, even in 2021, the genre often gets dumped on and pushed aside by those without a taste for it, often including many mainstream movie critics. While this factor isn't nearly as prevalent as it was in past decades, Universal may want Jaws to continue to be seen as a prestige picture, and calling it horror might unfairly undermine that. Still, that doesn't explain why so many movie watchers insist Jaws isn't horror either, as they have nothing to gain or lose by labeling it as such, unless of course they just plain hate the genre.
Is Jaws Horror Or Not?
When looked at logically, and as close to objectively as can possibly be done about such a potentially subjective matter as movie classification, it seems clear that Steven Spielberg's breakthrough blockbuster Jaws is indeed a horror movie. If Alien can be both horror and sci-fi, why can't Jaws be both horror and adventure? Just because something falls under horror, doesn't mean it can't also include other genres. The term sci-fi/horror exists for a reason after all. No logical roadblock exists to giving it that distinction. What truly makes Jaws a horror movie, aside from its sheer scare factor mentioned above, is that when pared down to its basest elements, it's a monster movie.
The monster may be a huge, hungry animal instead of a demon or vampire, but the shark is still very much a monster, and Brody, Hooper, and Quint are the ragtag monster hunters out to slay the beast that's taking lives around a small area. Being a horror movie won't hurt Spielberg's legacy of great movies, as this basic plot has been the backbone of many popular horror films, from Fright Night to Silver Bullet, to even Predator, another movie that's often incorrectly excluded from the horror genre. Jaws also influenced later stylistic horror elements, such as not showing the monster in full until later on and making use of monster POV shots. Jaws is definitely a horror film, and it's about time the pop culture world at large started regarding it as such. It won't hurt the legacy of a 46-year-old all-time classic, and it's a distinction long overdue. Horror movies can win Oscars too, and maybe more would, without such an arbitrary cutout so often being made to exclude them.