ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - July 17th
"JAWS: THE REVENGE" released in 1987
Watch the Jaws: The Revenge trailer below!
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With the recent heart attack death of Chief of Police Martin Brody (Roy Scheider), which his wife Ellen attributes to his fear of sharks, lives with her youngest son, Sean (Mitchell Anderson) - who is also an Amity Island police deputy. When Sean is dispatched to clear a log from a buoy a few days before Christmas, he is killed by a massive 28-foot great white shark, sinking his boat in the process. At Sean's funeral, Ellen is encouraged by her eldest son, Mike (Lance Guest) to come to the Bahama's with his wife Carla (Karen Young) and daughter Thea (Judith Barsi), where Mike is working as marine biologist. Once there, Ellen starts to heal from her grief and even begins a budding relationship with a freelance pilot Hoagie Newcombe (Michael Caine). But once again, the same shark that killed Sean soon trackes her to the Caribbean. Ellen's obsession that the shark is targeting her family with a vengeance begins to cause her nightmares and even starts giving her psychic feelings when the shark is near or attacks. When Thea is almost killed by the shark, Ellen boards a boat alone to sacrifice herself to the shark so it may spare her family. Mike and his partner Jake (Mario Van Peebles) join with Hoagie to find Ellen before the monster killer shark completes it's revenge!
Michael Brody: Dad died of a heart attack!
Ellen Brody: No. He died from fear. The fear of it killed him.
Top: Lorraine Gary returns as Ellen Brody;
Above: Jaws newcomer Lance Guest as Mike Brody
Produced and directed by Joseph Sargent, Jaws: The Revenge ignored all the events of the previous film, Jaws 3-D (1983); In its predecessor, Mike is an engineer for SeaWorld, whereas in Jaws: The Revenge he is a marine research scientist, and Sean is not associated with the police force in Jaws 3-D. In fact, one Universal press releases for the fourth movie omits Jaws 3-D by referring to Jaws: The Revenge as the "third film of the remarkable Jaws trilogy." While Jaws 2 is presumably still part of series continuity, no specific events from that sequel are mentioned by the characters.
Top: Dashing pilot Hoagie Newcombe, played by Michael Caine;
Above: Ellen and Hoagie begin a budding romance
Joining Lorraine Gary in the cast was Lance Guest, Karen Young, Mario Van Peebles, Judith Barsi, and Michael Caine. Revenge would prove to be one of the last of Caine's notorious "paycheck pictures" alongside Ashanti (1979), The Swarm (1978), The Island (1980), Blame It on Rio (1984) and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979). When Caine was asked about this movie in an interview, he answered, "I have never seen it, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." The original screenplay also had a cameo scene for Richard Dreyfuss to reprise his role as Matt Hooper (but was never shot), and even Roy Scheider was approached for a bit part but declined, stating "Satan himself could not get me to do Jaws part 4". Reportedly, if Scheider had accepted, the shark would've killed his Martin Brody character, rather than Sean Brody, at the start of the movie.
Above: Jaws claims his first victim in the Bahamas!
While Martha's Voneyard was one again used as the location for Amity Island, the bulk of filming was shot on location in Nassau, The Bahamas. The special effects team, headed by Henry Millar, arrived at South Beach almost a month before principal photography commenced to begin testing of the animatronic sharks. Seven models and/or segments were eventually made; two models were fully articulated, two were made for jumping, one for ramming, one was a half shark (the top half) and one was just a fin. The two fully articulated models each had 22 sectioned ribs and movable jaws covered by a flexible water-based latex skin, measured 25 feet (7.6 m) in length and weighed 2500 pounds. Production then moved to Universal Studios to finish shooting, where the water in the tank where the climax was shot was filled with blue dye, which turned Michael Caine's and Lorraine Gary's hair blue!
Ellen Brody: [to the shark] Come and get me, you son of a bitch!
Top: Mike, Hoagie and Jake (Mario Van Peebles) search for Ellen;
Above: Jaws attacks Ellen, just as her son arrives to rescue her!
The original ending for Jaws: The Revenge was for Ellen to ram the shark with Mike's boat, killing it and it's sinking body causing the boat to break apart and sink. However, after the release of the film, audiences hated the ending and Universal quickly ordered an alternate ending filmed where the shark is still impaled by the bow sprit, but then it is blown up from the explosives that Jake had managed to put in the shark's mouth. The new ending also had Jake survive. Some sources say that re-shooting the ending prevented Michael Caine from collecting his Academy Award for Hannah and Her Sisters, while others claim the re-shot ending began filming only five days after the movie was released and was intended for the version released in Europe (Universal also included the ending in all it's home media releases).
Watch the original uncut ending to Jaws: The Revenge below!
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The reviews for Jaws: The Revenge were scathing when released in 1987. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film zero stars, writing in his review that it "is not simply a bad movie, but also a stupid and incompetent one." He lists several elements that he finds unbelievable, including that Ellen is "haunted by flashbacks to events where she was not even present." The Independent pointed out that "the film was riddled with inconsistencies [and] errors ... sharks cannot float or roar like lions." Lorraine Gary was nominated for a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress, while the film was rated by Entertainment Weekly as one of The 25 Worst Sequels Ever Made in 2008. It was also voted number 22 by readers of Empire magazine in their list of The 50 Worst Movies Ever in 2012.
Top: Ellen and Hoagie survive the ordeal on Neptunes Folly;
Above: Director/producer Joseph Sargent lines up a shot on location
Jaws: The Revenge may not have stood the test of time very well, but it has had it's share of constructive criticism. Richard Scheib praised the "beautiful above and below water photography" and the "realistic mechanical shark", and Derek Winnert writing "the Bahamas backdrops are pretty and the shark looks as toothsome as ever." And there is no doubt film was made with no shortage of enthusiasm from director Joseph Sargent; in an interview with the Boston Herald, Sargent called Revenge "a ticking bomb waiting to go off. ... Sid Sheinberg (then-president of MCA Inc., parent company of Universal Pictures) expects a miracle – and we're going to make it happen!"
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I'm looking to build a model of the ketch, Neptune's Folly. Any Ideas where I could find some plans. Even if they were the originals from her build.
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