Everyone has that one movie they love to hate. For horror fans and cinephiles alike, that movie is often Jaws The Revenge. Released in 1987, it didn't just underperform; it basically became the poster child for how to destroy a legendary franchise. Critics absolutely mauled it. It currently holds a rare 0% on Rotten Tomatoes. Honestly, though? There is something fascinating about how a masterpiece like Steven Spielberg’s original 1975 Jaws mutated into a film where a shark follows a family from New England to the Bahamas because it has a personal vendetta.
The logic is non-existent. The special effects are, frankly, hilarious. Yet, decades later, we’re still talking about it.
The Shark That Held a Grudge
The core premise of Jaws The Revenge is what usually loses people within the first ten minutes. After the shark kills Sean Brody in Amity, his mother, Ellen Brody (played by a returning Lorraine Gary), becomes convinced that the shark is actively hunting her family. It’s not just a shark anymore. It’s a supernatural stalker. It somehow tracks them across thousands of miles of ocean to the warm waters of the Bahamas in record time.
Marine biologists will tell you that great whites don't do this. They don't have "revenge" settings in their brains. They’re opportunistic predators. But director Joseph Sargent and screenwriter Michael de Guzman decided to lean into the mystical. There’s even a subplot in the original script and the movie's novelization by Hank Searls involving a voodoo curse. While most of the explicit voodoo stuff was cut from the final film, you can still feel the "magic" lingering in the shark's weirdly sentient behavior.
It’s wild. The shark roars. Yes, it literally growls like a lion when it breaches the water. Sharks don't have vocal cords. Everyone knows this, yet there it is—a roaring fish.
Michael Caine and the Great Paycheck
You can't talk about Jaws The Revenge without mentioning Michael Caine. He plays Hoagie, a pilot who basically exists to provide a love interest for Ellen and fly people around. Caine famously couldn't accept his Oscar for Hannah and Her Sisters because he was busy filming this movie in the Bahamas.
His take on the experience is legendary. He once said, "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it is terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific." That kind of honesty is refreshing. It reminds us that even at the highest levels of Hollywood, sometimes a job is just a job. Caine brings a weirdly charming, relaxed energy to a movie that is otherwise trying—and failing—to be a high-stakes thriller. He looks like he’s having a great vacation, which, according to production notes, most of the cast was.
The production was rushed. Incredibly rushed. Universal Pictures wanted a summer blockbuster and gave the team less than nine months to go from a blank page to a finished film in theaters. You can see that haste in every frame. The shark, nicknamed "Bruce" in the first film but a far more malfunctioning version here, often shows its mechanical underside. In one of the most famous gaffes, you can clearly see the platform the shark is mounted on as it attacks the boat at the end.
The Ending(s) That Made No Sense
Depending on where you live or what version you saw on TV, you might have seen a completely different ending for Jaws The Revenge.
In the original theatrical release, the shark is simply impaled by the bowsprit of the boat. It’s messy, but relatively grounded. However, test audiences hated it. They wanted something "bigger." So, the editors hastily slapped together a new ending where the shark inexplicably explodes when it gets poked by the boat. To make matters worse, they reused footage from the first movie's explosion to save time and money.
Then there’s the fate of Jake, played by Mario Van Peebles. In the theatrical version, he gets eaten. Done. But in the "happy" version often seen on home video, he somehow survives being chewed up and dragged underwater by a massive shark, appearing at the end with just a few scratches. It defies every law of biology and physics.
Why the Failure of Jaws The Revenge Still Matters
So, why do we care?
It’s a masterclass in "Sequelitis." It shows what happens when a studio prioritizes a release date over a script. But more than that, it represents the end of an era. This was the last time a major studio tried to make a "serious" Jaws movie. After this, the shark movie genre moved into the realm of self-aware camp, eventually giving us things like Sharknado or The Meg.
Jaws The Revenge is the bridge between the prestige horror of the 70s and the "so bad it's good" era of the 2000s.
It’s also a reminder of the brilliance of the original. Spielberg knew that the shark was scarier when you didn't see it. By the fourth movie, the shark is on screen constantly, looking like a giant, grey bathtub toy. The mystery was gone. The fear was replaced by a strange kind of pity for the actors involved.
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A New Perspective for Modern Viewers
If you’re going to watch it today, don't go in expecting Jaws. Go in expecting a weird, 80s fever dream. Look at the fashion. Look at the beautiful Bahamas scenery. Laugh at the shark roaring.
There is a genuine craft in some of the underwater photography, even if the subject matter is ridiculous. And Lorraine Gary actually gives a very committed performance. She treats the material with way more respect than it probably deserves, which makes the whole thing feel even more surreal.
How to Appreciate the Disaster
If you're a film student or a casual fan, there are a few ways to get more out of this experience:
- Watch the "Making Of" retrospectives. The stories of the mechanical shark breaking down in the salt water are often more entertaining than the movie itself.
- Compare the novelization. Hank Searls tried to fix the plot holes by introducing the aforementioned voodoo subplot. It makes the shark's "revenge" actually make sense within a supernatural context.
- Look for the goofs. It’s a fun game. Spot the camera crew, the hydraulics, and the inconsistent weather.
Jaws The Revenge isn't a good movie by any traditional metric. It’s a mess. But it’s a human mess. It’s the result of hundreds of people working very hard on a timeline that was destined for failure. It’s a piece of Hollywood history that teaches us more about the film industry than many "perfect" movies ever could.
Moving Forward: The Legacy of the Great White
If you’re looking to dive deeper into the world of shark cinema or the history of franchise filmmaking, start by looking at the production timelines of the 1980s. Understanding the "Summer Blockbuster" pressure of that era explains a lot about why movies like this exist.
Next, check out the documentary The Shark is Still Working. It focuses primarily on the first film, but it provides essential context for why the sequels struggled so hard to capture the lightning in a bottle that Spielberg found in 1975. You can also track down the various "lost" scenes from the Jaws sequels to see how much of the story was left on the cutting room floor in favor of faster pacing.
Ultimately, the best way to handle Jaws The Revenge is to accept it for what it is: a bizarre, roaring, exploding footnote in cinema history that reminds us why the original Jaws is a masterpiece that can never truly be replicated.