Great White, aka The Last Jaws (1981 film)

Only the greatest movie poster ever!

Gentlemen, absolutely nothing is going to happen. - Wells

Here we have another film that I actually hadn't heard of until I read Horror Hound Magazine, first in an article covering horror films that hadn't received a DVD release yet, then mentions in the 1981 tribute issue I mentioned yesterday.  From what I read, this movie was only in theaters a short time before Universal (owners of the rights to the original Jaws) filed a lawsuit against the makers of this film for being too much like theirs, resulting in the film being pulled from screens all over the United States.  Upon reading that, I started wondering if I'd ever get a chance to see the film.  Luckily, Amazon came to the rescue!  Thanks to them, I have my own copy of the film to bring a review to you.

The film is, of course, about a Great White shark terrorizing the coastal town of Port Harbor.  Our heroes this time are a writer, Peter Benton, and a shark hunter, Ron Hammer, who try to take the fight to the great white.  Naturally, there's an authority in town who doesn't want to hear about a shark attack, William Wells, as it would be bad for the upcoming wind-surfing regatta he had planned.  Will our heroic duo be able to stop the shark in time, or will the town become a shark's smorgasbord?

The film was interesting.  Other than the fact that it features a great white attacking people near a city near the ocean, it doesn't really seem to have that much in common with Jaws to me.  Ron Hammer is, however, definitely similar to Quint, but no other characters match up that well to anyone else from Jaws.  The events are different, the characters and victims are different, just about everything feels different, outside of the shark.  But Universal decided, since Great White was making some big money when it hit theaters that it had to give them a cease and desist.

James Franciscus played Peter Benton, and he played the part really well.  He was also in The Cat o' Nine Tails, Beneath the Planet of the Apes and the Judgment Night episode of The Twilight Zone.  Vic Morrow played Ron Hammer, and he did really well channeling his inner Quint.  Vic Morrow was a really well-respected actor, and he died tragically on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie.  When filming a sequence late at night with a pair of child actors, the three of them were killed in an accident with a damaged helicopter.

I enjoyed this film.  The effects and the acting were good.  The shark was more visible here than in the original Jaws (they must not have had the same troubles Spielberg had with his mechanic shark), edited in with some shark stock footage where appropriate.  I give the film a 4 out of 5.  Tomorrow, we have another beach movie, another forgotten classic of 1981: Blood Beach.  Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water... you can't get to it!  Until then, this is Red Hawk signing out!

Cujo (1983 film)

Nope.  Nothing wrong here. - Advertising mascot the Professor

So, it's storytime here at Happy Horror again, folks!  See, when I was little, my mom and her friend would take turns watching me while they went to the movies... Mom would go in the daytime and her friend would watch me, then her friend would go at night while I stayed home with Mom.  Well, when this movie came out, my moms friend was driving an old Pinto.  The night she saw the movie, she was driving home and happened to see a huge St. Bernard walking down the street.  She was just hoping she wouldn't have car trouble!

Cujo is something of a milestone for me.  It was, to the best of my knowledge, the first "siege" type movie I'd ever seen, also possibly the first killer animal film.  The story is pretty basic.  Woman and her son take a car out to a mechanic's, only to find the place deserted, except for a very sick, very rabid St. Bernard.  Everything she does from that point is to try to calm her little boy, and to survive the killer animal outside the door.

The film is very effective.  The dogs they have are well-trained, and look the part of the sick pet.  The cast does pretty well, also.  Dee Wallace plays mother Donna Trenton.  She did very well here, possibly the best of any King film actress.  She's also in ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, The Howling and Critters.  Ed Lauter played mechanic Joe Camber here.  He's also been in The Number 23, Night of Terror and 1976's King Kong remake.  Kaiulani Lee played his wife, Charity.  She didn't have a really long part, but she did well with it.  She was also in 1981's The Fan, an episode of Tales from the Darkside ("Deliver Us from Goodness") and Hush.  Billy Jacoby played Brett Camber, Joe and Charity's son and Cujo's owner.  He had a really intense scene with Cujo in the fog early on in the film.  He was also in The Beastmaster, Bloody Birthday and The 'Burbs.

Now, we come at a bit of an impasse here.  In my It's Alive review, I mentioned that I couldn't give a movie a perfect score that hurt a cat in it.  Well, here we have a dog that gets hurt repeatedly.  However, I do find a difference between killing an animal off needlessly (as in It's Alive, Man's Best Friend, Drag Me to Hell, etc.) and having the animal be a killing machine.  Without the killer dog here, we wouldn't have a movie.  For example, I saw a movie years ago that had the plotline of feral/possessed cats attacking people.  If I were to review that film today, I wouldn't dock points from it, even with cats getting hurt in it, because that's the driving force behind the plot.  In short: sick/possessed/wild animal attacking people as part of the plot: a-okay with me.  Animal getting killed or hurt just to draw sympathy from the audience, or show just how mean the villain/monster is: not good in my book at all.

With that out of the way, I give the film a 5 out of 5.  Stephen King has gone on record stating that it's one of his favorite film adaptations, and who am I to disagree there?  So, on to the next!  Tomorrow, we're going to have a true classic, and contender for best horror film of all time.  What film is it?  You'll have to wait to find out!  Until next time, take care, and this is Red Hawk signing out!