Fin & Fury: Jaws, Orca, and the Sea of Madness

Strap on your floaties and kiss your beach vacation goodbye — this episode we’re plunging into three fin-tastic oceanic nightmares that’ll make you never want to swim again! We’re sinking our teeth into Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (the shark that launched a thousand nightmares), the gloriously unhinged killer whale revenge flick Orca, and the batshit stormy psychological chiller Sea of Madness.

From a great white with a personal grudge against Amity Island to a whale that makes Moby Dick look like a therapy patient, and whatever fresh aquatic insanity Sea of Madness throws at us, we’re dissecting the blood-soaked 'nature strikes back' trope, legendary scores, and why these movies still have us side-eyeing the ocean like it owes us money.

Warning: may cause sudden outbursts of 'We’re gonna need a bigger boat' and an irrational fear of rubber sharks. Grab a drink (preferably not seawater) and join us — just don’t blame us when you can’t sleep with the lights off.

Transcript

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Welcome to Dad Bon of Horror, Season 1, Episode 25. I'm your host, Butch Barr. Still no co-host. So, wow, episode 25. Quarterway to 100. Wow. Anyway, so episode 25. I have no housekeeping stuff to go over. So we'll jump right into the movies. Movie number one is Jaws. From 1975. You can find it on stars. The production company Verzanic Brown Productions and Universal Studios. I'm sorry, Universal Pictures. The director was Steven Spielberg. The writers were Peter Benchley and Carl Gottlieb. And the stars Roy Scheider, Robert Shaw, and Richard Dreyfus. That's your pirate cast. Cause they're all ours. Yeah, that was stupid. The plot. When a massive killer shark unleashes chaos on a beach community off Long Island, it's up to the local police chief, a marine biologist, and an old seafarer to hunt the beast down. So why this movie? You know, I was thinking 4th of July, and you know, you think 4th of July, you think down to beach, you know, you think people in the water, and and you think, you know, Jaws. Yeah. So that's why. I am pretty sure the first time I saw this movie, it was on Network TV. So it came out in 1975. I was four. And so and well, I mean, I knew I didn't see in the theater. So I'm sure it was years after that, you know, 77, 78, somewhere in there, probably Jaws 2 had already been out, but it was on Network TV, and I remember I was in my parents' bedroom laying on their bed, watching the movie, and I remember I remember like keeping my arms and legs in on the bed, not letting them hang over for fear shark would eat them. Is that silly? Yeah, but that's the kind of stuff that goes through you know kids' heads. My favorite kill is the first kill in the movie. Girl is in the water and she's out by the buoy, yelling for her boyfriend to come in, or I'm assuming boyfriend. And then, you know, all of a sudden, you know, the shark, you know, hits her. And she starts, you know, panicking and you know getting scared. And then all of a sudden, you know, she's down, and she's being, you know, dragged back and forth, back and forth. And uh, you know, she grabs the buoy, but to no avail. She gets dragged under the water, and then the water is all calm and Serena on top after that. It's just like a perfect setup for the movie, and so that's why that's my favorite kill. A lot of the things I'm probably gonna talk about, um, a lot of facts and things I'm gonna bring up are things that I'm sure a lot of people have heard before. Um, this movie, again, it's over 50 years old, and there's been many making of. I don't I don't know if there's a lot of secrets out there or anything I'm gonna reveal that everybody out there doesn't know, but that's not the point of this. The point is just to talk, and I am good at that. So I want to start with that uh's a movie that initiated the term blockbuster. So back when Jaws came out, it wasn't like it is today. You know, today you can go online and you can buy tickets for a showing online, and you can reserve the seats so you know exactly what row and what seat you're in, and it's all clean and sanitary. I mean, you can still just go into the theater, but most people have already bought them online. So back then it wasn't like that. Back then, it was first come, first serve. So you had to go to the theater, you know, that day and go to the box office and buy a ticket, and then the ticket only guaranteed you getting into the theater and having a seat, not which one you had. So people would stand in line. And uh for Jaws, apparently the lines stretched blocks and blocks, they were you know many, many blocks long, hence the title Blockbuster. And I, you know, and I'm not sure which way I liked it better because I am a very punctual person. So I get to the theater even now a half hour before the movie. And like now, since anybody can just buy them online, you know, back then you had to get there early to get good seats. If you got there late, you know you'd have terrible seats. Not now. Now we reward you know laziness and tardiness. You can buy them, you can buy the tickets online, and even if you show up during the previews or a couple minutes into the movie, that's okay. You can get good seats yet. You can bother all the other people with in-good seats by showing up late like that. So, sorry. I don't like when people come in to the theater once the trailer's started. I do like I do like watching the trailers, so I don't want you walking in front of me. I don't want you bothering me. Moving on. This movie was based on a book by Peter Benchley. I actually like this movie better than I like the book. I did read the book. It's been maybe 20, 30 years since I read the book, but uh the the thing about the book, it's got this secondary plot going on that I didn't care for then, and and I and I think about it, I don't care for it now. So the idea, if from what I remember, Ken, it's been a few years, is that Hooper comes to town and Hooper knows uh Brody's wife, and they start to have like an affair. And I don't care for that. Maybe it's because you know, by the time I read the book, I'd probably seen the movie, you know, 10-15 times and really enjoyed the movie. Therefore, I was gonna reject anything new coming out of the book. And the movie is very different from the book. I would tell you to to read the book. It's a good book, it's just the movie is just that much better. So something just everybody knows the mechanical shark that was used in this was named Bruce. Bruce Raymer was Spielberg's attorney. Do I think that Spielberg views attorneys as sharks and therefore he named the shark after his attorney? Yeah, I'm gonna say yes to that. Um but that's just a guess. So Bruce. So the special effects team who created him uh didn't account for the problems salt water would cause and uh the destructive power of salt water. Um therefore Bruce didn't work a lot, and because of that, they had to uh basically reduce the amount you see, Bruce, the amount you see the shark. Uh that's why you don't see the shark till well after halfway through the movie. So although that was a problem and it made Spielberg change things, I think, uh and I'm not alone, I think it really added into the movie that you don't really see the shark until you know late in the in the picture. And I think strangely enough, I think a lot of their filmmakers have copied that, even though they didn't know that was the original idea by the director. So one of my favorite shots in all of film, not just this movie, in all of film, is it's a shot where uh Chief Brody he sees a Kittner boy get attacked. And the camera does what is called a dolly zoom technique, where the physical camera is physically moved towards the subject on a track, so it's moved towards Brody's face, Roy Scheider's face, and while while it's zooming in, the operator zooms the lens out, so it causes the background to expand away, revealing a wider field of view and giving the impression that the world is opening up or dropping away. So the camera zoomed in on Brody, and as it's zooming in on his face, like the world behind him is just like going away. And and it's really cool. It's such a great shot. Again, my favorite shot, and it it really, I mean, all of us have been in that situation, I think, at one time in our life or another, where something happened that is like so shocking that you just feel like alone, and everything around you is just somehow disappeared. And and that's what that's what that particular camera shot gives to you. And that's and it is, you know, it's I've been it's happened to me after the movie where I can think of is that movie where that happens. It's it's just an amazing shot. So again, I think everybody out knows, everybody out there knows one of the most famous lines from the movie is you're gonna need a bigger boat. And I think a lot of people know that Roy Scheider ad-libed that. That was not in the script. What I didn't know, and I think a lot of people don't know, is that although it was ad-libbed at that time, it was actually a line that the crew were using because they were, you know, shooting a lot of this on water, and so the camera and all the other stuff for the production crew had to be on another boat. And apparently the skiff it was on was way too small for all the equipment, and so the joke was you're gonna need a bigger boat, and talking about the boat that all the production equipment was on. So that was like a joke among the production crew, which Roy Scheider picked up on, and therefore used it that moment, and it was great, and it's you know, movie history, one of the most recognizable lines and best lines in movie history. So I was watching this recently with my wife again for this episode, and my wife it's it's one of her favorite movies, she actually loves Jaws. She doesn't like re-watching many movies, but she'll rewatch Jaws. And while we're watching it, it came to me that the actor who played the mayor, the mayor of Shark Town, I don't know if that particular actor had was not friendly with the wardrobe department or had you know had a beef with them because they put him in the ugliest suits imaginable. Granted, it was the 70s, but these were ugly for the 70s. You know, they were like trying to make him look ridiculous. Man, just ugly. Again, I know it was the 70s, but this was ugly for the 70s. You know, and with this movie being such a huge success, it was copied a lot. In fact, probably the next movie that next movie I'm gonna talk about was one that copied it. And it's funny to see how often it gets copied or lines from it get used or the similar situation gets used. There's actually a movie out there called Blades, which is just about a direct copy of Jaws, except instead of the ocean, it takes place on a golf course, and instead of a shark, it's you know, it's a greenskeepers like lawnmower. From you know, this is I think this was done in the 80s, so from back in the 80s. So yeah, it's it is hilarious. I mean, some of the uh there's very similar characters, there are lines that are directly taken from Jaws. It is a direct parody, except again, it's on a golf course, and instead of a shark, it's a it's a lawnmower. You should see it, it's pretty good. I mean, it's good in that it's ridiculous good. The towards the end of the movie, Quint gives his USS Indianapolis uh story. Now his his story is false, of course. He wasn't Quint. There wasn't a Quint and whatnot, but it is a true account that there was a ship in World War II, the USS Indianapolis, that did deliver the bomb on a secret mission and was sunk returning from that mission by uh by a submarine. I think there were about 1,200 people on the ship, 1,200 men, and 900 made it into the ocean. And when the rescuers arrived four days later, uh 316 survivors were pulled from the water. Sharks and the elements took the rest. So, no idea how many the sharks took. It could be from dozens to hundreds. Definitely took a bunch. So his story about that, the concept is true, but his particular story, you know, was not. This was, I believe, the second collaboration of John Williams and Steven Spielberg. The first one was called uh Sugarland Express. This collaboration between the two of them would be mutually benefit, uh beneficial for both of them for decades. In fact, uh Spielberg just released another movie, Disclosure Day, and John Williams came out of retirement to to compose the music for it. So, again, at this time, Williams was probably in his 30s, and Spielberg was in his 20s when this movie was made. And so, Williams, when he first played the two two note uh theme for The Shark, you know, but well, well, Spielberg laughed and thought Williams was joking. Um, but Williams, of course, wasn't, and Williams is a stubborn band and and kept it and stayed with it and made an incredible score. And uh Spielberg later would say that the music was a big part of why this movie was such a success. And it it showed the marrying of directors to composers and and music to to movie making, really. So the talent in this movie, I mean, was kind of incredible for what everybody thought this movie was gonna be. Um, Robert Shaw, start with there, amazing actor. He was, I mean, I knew him from playing Germans or Germans in uh World War II movies. So, you know, imagine him shaved with blonde hair and uh, you know, well-kept blonde hair. Um I loved him in the movie The Battle of the Bulge. So when Shaw was first handed the script, he absolutely hated it. He passed on the roll, he thought the story was a trashy B movie about a fish, and so furthermore, Shaw was a proud member of the Royal Shakespeare Company, so accomplished and an accomplished award-winning novelist, you know, both. And to play Quint, to play a blaspheming Yankee fisherman and strip away his English accent and this highbrow persona that he played to play this gritty working-class American. It was it was something he just didn't want to do. His wife at the time, Mary Ure, and his secretary both urged them to read the book. And after reading the book, he saw what Quint could be and what Quint was. Something, something, you know, more for his acting skill. Then there was Richard Dreyfus. So Robert Shaw was in his mid-40s, and Richard Dreyfist comes along and is in his mid-20s, and and uh they didn't get along on set. It was, you know, a generational gap, is what it turned out to be. Now, Dreyfist, another amazing talent. Uh, he did not want the Hooper role. What I believe he said he didn't want to be in it, but he'd want to he wanted to watch the movie once it was made. So he knew it was going to be good. He didn't want to do the long shoot. He did go on to star in another of Spielberg's hit movies, Close Encounters of the Third Kind. He did take the part, and the shoot dragged on for a long time. It was a hundred days over schedule, I guess. And uh he was just desperate to leave Martha Fineard. So the the final day of Principal Photography, he didn't need to be there. The crew were preparing to shoot the ultimate explosion of the shark. Spielberg was scared that the crew was going to throw him in the ocean as part of a rat party prank. So Spielberg just quietly snuck away and wasn't there when they filmed the shark explosion scene. So he snuck away and boarded a plane to Boston, and he saw, he found basically Dreyfus, Richard Dreyfus is already sitting on the plane. So when Dreyfus asked how the shot went, Spielberg just smiled and said, They're shooting it now. And they both started laughing. So think about it, Spielberg wasn't even in what is like, you know, the ending, the ending of the movie. He's what he wasn't even there. You know, give that to the second, you know, the assistant director, the the, you know, yeah, just funny. And uh last on the actors I'm gonna point out is Roy Scheider. Now, Roy's great. You know, I I don't know who doesn't love a good Roy Scheider. Um, before Jaws, I mean, he was in the French connection. That was that was his big thing before Jaws. Originally, Spielberg wanted Robert Duvall or Charlton Heston. Man, Chuck Heston is brody. I I don't see how it, if had it been Heston, I get it. You can't put Heston in there. Because as soon as Heston, like the very first time he's with the mayor and he's telling the mayor, you got a shark problem, there's no backing. He doesn't back down. The mayor doesn't make a back down, there's no way in hell. Scheiter worked out much better. So apparently, the whole reason that Scheider got the part is he overheard Spielberg at a party talking about the role. And basically, he told Spielberg, hey, I'm right for the part. Cast me in the part. And Spielberg, since uh Roy Scheider had just been uh Oscar nominated for an Oscar for the French Connection, hired him. And there's a funny story about Jaws 2 uh that I'm not gonna get into. I'll get into when I get to Jaws 2. And you know, Spielberg, the director, I don't know how much I need to say about Spielberg, one of the one of the best directors of of I mean of definitely of my generation, possibly of all time. So I'm going to move on to movie number two, and from episode 25 of season one. And that movie is Orca from 1977. You can rent or buy it on Prime. The production company is Famous Films, apparently the second famous films production company, and De Laurentis. Oh boy. Cinemagra. Cinematographica. Sure. I'm guessing that's Italian. Director, Michael Anderson, writer, Luciano Vincenzoni, Vincenzia. Okay. Sergio Donati and Robert Town. It stars Richard Harris, Charlotte Rampling, and Will Sampson. Plot. A fisherman and his crew are targeted by a killer whale seeking vengeance for the death of its mate. So why this movie? Um I had done Jaws, and this movie was absolutely made. Because of the movie Jaws. So that's why. How did I see it? I watched it for the first time for this. My favorite kill is. I'm going to give you a spoiler alert here. So my favorite kill. So basically, this killer whale Orca is trying to get the captain of the boat that accidentally killed this Orca's mate. And at the end of the movie, he pushes the fishermen to the point of no return, basically, and they're chasing the orca. And they chase the orca north. Now they started out in New England, so they're chasing him north, and finally they get to where there's, you know, ice shelves and and and and icebergs and stuff. So the orca wrecks a ship. The only two survivors end up being the captain, played by Richard Harris, and um, I think she was a marine biologist, uh, played by Charlotte Rambling. And eventually the Orca forces Richard Harris' character into the water, and while in the water, the orca uses its tail to basically pick Richard Harris up and whip him against an iceberg, killing him. Apparently, that is the way killer whales kill things. So, not out of character, apparently. So, this is not a very good movie. Um, it is a it is a it is a theft of Jaws. After seeing Jaws, De Laurentiis called Luciano Vincenzoni and asked, uh, what sea creature is tougher than a shark? And uh for this movie. And they went with a killer whale, and a lot of people call them orcas. So now, again, I don't know my marine biology as well as I should, but for some reason I think a killer whale isn't a whale, it's actually a dolphin. Again, I didn't look it up, I should have, but I'm pretty sure of that. So most of this movie is orca getting revenge, uh, forcing fishermen, uh, destroying boats, and somehow wrecking stuff. I don't know how it wrecked, forcing uh the fishermen to force Richard Harris and his crew back on the water so that he's got an opportunity, the orca has an opportunity to kill that crew. It's kind of ridiculous. Absolutely is ridiculous, but it's what it the movie was. Funny thing, so towards the beginning of the movie, the hot marine biologist, played by Charlotte Rambling, tells Richard Harris's Fisher character not to try to capture a killer whale. She's afraid, in trying to capture it, that they will accidentally kill it. But Richard Harris assures her that he's a professional. And that won't ever happen if he's doing it because he's that good. Well, next time he goes out, he accidentally kills a pregnant killer whale. Why don't men ever listen? In this movie, they really had to pat it. There's lots of random and unnecessary footage of killer whales. I mean, yeah, just you know, it's I don't know. There is a lot of footage of unnecessary killer whales swimming around. That was it's a lot of the movie. Um yeah, this I know this movie did not could not have done well. It was it was terrible. And you have Richard Harris, who's an incredible actor, is in so many things. I was surprised he only had 77 acting credits. Uh most of them are good things, of course, good projects. Uh, young kids will know him as Alba's Dumbledore, a Dumbledore, from their first two Harry Potter movies. So, yeah, if there's anybody youngins listening, that's how you will know Richard Harris. I remember him from a movie called A Man Cold Horse, an excellent movie, but he's been in again a lot of projects. Uh, Charlotte Rampling, I have unknowingly seen her in a bunch of things, not even knowing. She has 143 acting credits, so you have probably seen her in something too. And goes all the way back to her first movie was A Hard Days Night in 1964. So, yeah, so she was in the Beatles movie. Probably got to beat the Beatles. Um, this movie also sees uh the film debut of Bo Derrick. I didn't even recognize her. I mean, she looks young and her hair is short, which is which is again, I didn't recognize her. I also didn't recognize Robert Carradine. Robert Carradine, who I have talked about before, I think. Uh Robert Carradine was in the movie Revenge of the Nerds, uh, son of John Carradine, who's in you know 7,000 horror movies. But it was an early role for him, too. Unrecognizable, didn't even know it was him, had to go back and look and see. Uh, was amazed. So the last movie to talk about for season one, episode 25, is called Sea of Madness from 2024. You can find it on Fawsom. Production company Green Apple Entertainment. The director Mitch Lang, L-A-I-N-G, writer Mitch Lang, Jonathan Tripp, starring Jessa Jupiter Flux, Mitch Lang, and Marcus Allen, not the Marcus Allen. And for those of you who don't know what I mean, just ignore that. The plot. Survivors and newcomers are trapped on a World War II ship where a secret organization's deep sea bacteria escapes in a storm. As crew members mutate into evil mermaids, Dr. Martin and Deputy Thomas fight to survive another BCU threat. Yes. And the movie is as incoherent as that plot. Uh, why this movie? Okay. So originally this movie was gonna be Ouija Shark because I had dead jaws. The second movie was Orca, which was based on Jaws, and I was just gonna do a you know independent movie shark movie, because most of them are based on Jaws. But my wife thought, no, don't put another shark there. You did a shark, you did a killer whale, do something different. So, this is what I found different. These are sea creatures that are killing things. Now, granted, some are mermaids, some I don't know what they are. They're not, we're just gonna go, they're sea creatures. How did I see it? I watched it for the first time for this. My favorite kill. This is one of those movies that's so bad. Like, I couldn't even pick one out. Like, they were just everything was bad. Again, I blame my wife for watching this movie. The movie's terrible. Um, for most of the movie, I had no idea what was going on. Like, there was it just things were just happening, and like I got the overall gist of it. Like, something was happening and turning people into things, kind of maybe. And I found out like if you got bit by one mate, not killed, you might turn into one. It it was again, it was all over the place. Uh, the picture was like grainy and sometimes really miscolored, and I'm not 100% sure it was on purpose. And if it was on purpose, I don't get the reasoning behind it. The sound quality was terrible. Sometimes you couldn't hear the dialogue over the music and other sounds going on. Quite frankly, I'm not sure if that hindered the plot. I mean, I don't know if it did or not. And the creatures in this were men that were obviously wearing really bad masks. The mermaids were just women with bad prosthetics and even worse makeup on. Um, the only good thing about this movie was just that Jupiter Flux was in it. She's another like uh like uh Angel Brad, uh Nicole, uh Angel Nicole Bradford or uh Mel Heflin, you know, girl that a woman that's in, you know, a whole bunch of these like independent horror movies. She was covered up and and not really used well, so just bad planning on them. Now, this Mitch Lang wrote, directed, and started the movie. I'm gonna tell you that there are some people that can pull that kind of thing off. I don't believe Mitch is one of them. So, yeah. That is all I have. I realize that well over half of the episode was about jaws, but I think that was worthwhile. I probably could have just elongated my jaw sing and made that just the whole episode, but I didn't because I do what I want. Next week, next episode, hopefully it's next week, next episode. I think I'm going to try the theme because of World Cup. I'm going to look and try some soccer horror movies with soccer in them. You'd think there'd be a lot of them. There aren't that many. And the ones that are out there aren't on streaming services. So it's going to be a struggle, but I'm going to see what I can do. Until that, again, if you enjoyed the episode, tell your friends. If you didn't enjoy it, tell your enemies. And other than that, have fun.