The Heirs of Jaws - Reactor

This was going to be an article about big, splashy shark movies. In particular, The Meg (2018) and the Sharknado cycle (2013-2018). Sharks in these films are not so much living animals as an excuse for lavish special effects and over-the-top adventures packed with in-jokes and fan service.

The Meg is your basic monster movie. Humans trapped in impossible situation have to try to survive giant prehistoric monster from the uttermost depths of the ocean. We know what’s actually down there—mostly cute little snailfish and tiny little amphipods—but we can kick back and pretend there really are humongous sharks just waiting for a crew of hapless humans to get on their last nerve.

The Sharknados are outright, gleeful, fully self-aware fantasy. A collection of former teen stars, led by 90210’s Ian Ziering, battles tornadoes full of hungry, hungry sharks. Each of the six films ups the ante on the last one, until by film number six, our heroes are boinging all over time and in and out of alternate worlds.

It seems as if half of genre Hollywood lined up for a cameo. Oh, hello, Wil and Anne Wheaton! Great to see you, Marina Sirtis! Oh, hi, Nichelle Nichols! And is that Dee Snider? David Hasselhoff? Gilbert Gottfried, oh, god, why. Wow, Tori Spelling, I’d never have known you.

All the sharks in these epics fly through the air, apparently able to breathe it, or at least survive in it for long enough to devour random and not-so-random humans and the occasional animal. They don’t appear to have internal organs, though there’s plenty of blood and splashing gore. Ian Ziering’s Fin (get it? Fin?) ends up inside a shark at least once per movie, slides right in and chainsaws or is chainsawed back out again. (Chainsaws are what we in the literary trade call a leitmotif.)

In this universe, a shark is basically a meat sock with big snaggly teeth. Its purpose in life is to chomp whatever it flies by or lands on. Often that’s somebody extremely annoying, whom we’re glad to see the last of.

A single shark can be fought off with various weapons including baseball bats, swords, and of course chainsaws. The full sharknado calls for much more serious weaponry. The bigger the ’nado, the more over the top the weapon. The point is to blow it up, and all its sharks along with it, thereby saving the world.

There’s nothing serious about it. It’s mindless, it’s fun. Grab a bucket of popcorn, put your feet up, and don’t ask too many questions.

As I was finishing up the last Sharknado—It’s About Time, and really, it is—the streaming algorithm gave me a shark movie I’d never heard of. It was late, but I was wide awake. I clicked on it. And that’s the one that stayed with me.

It’s a much smaller film than the others. Its title gives off a B-movie vibe: The Black Demon (2023). Rotten Tomatoes shows a distinct disparity between the audience and the critics. The critics are all meh, not enough blood and guts. The audience says it could become a cult classic.

I’m with the audience. It’s not big and it’s not splashy. It has one recognizable name in the cast, the lead, played by Josh Lucas. The rest are all Latinx, and the settings are minimalist: a family on the road in an SUV, a crumbling Mexican coastal town, an all but moribund oil-drilling platform.

The special effects are as minimal as the sets. The “demon” is another megalodon (called a “meg,” with a nod to the 2018 film). We see its huge fin a time or two; get a glimpse of its horrifically large jaws and teeth; see it surging beneath the surface of the sea.

It’s closer to the aesthetic of Jaws than many of that film’s successors. Tension builds through hints and suggestions rather than special effects. The emphasis is on character and human interactions—and there’s a spiritual/fantastical twist.

It’s not heavy-handed, though it easily could be. The shark is the messenger of a god, Tlaloc, who has dominion over the waters of the world. Tlaloc is angry: the drilling rig has contaminated the sea, and the land and its people are suffering as a consequence. It’s ultimately the fault of Josh Lucas’ character, Paul, and the company he works for.

In Jaws, the shark is pure force of nature. It’s claimed a territory that happens to be the ocean off the resort town of Amity, right in the middle of Amity’s main tourist season. It doesn’t have any agenda except to hunt and eat and to fight back when attacked.

There’s no concern on the humans’ part about preserving its species, or any species. The big issues are human lives and human profits, and the human preoccupation with science.

The Black Demon’s world has lost all pretense to innocence. Humans have polluted it almost to the point of no return. Tlaloc wants the earth’s balance restored, and he demands a sacrifice.

The shark is not the monster here. It is a threat, and that has to be dealt with. But it came for a reason. There’s only one way out for the human characters: to right the wrong that Paul and his company did to that part of the planet.

The movie knows where it comes from. One iconic line harks straight back to Jaws, but the outcome this time has to be different. The original shark was just doing what a shark does. This one swims on a whole different level.

It’s a quiet little film, but it hits the notes it needs to hit. It gets its message across, and it makes us care about its characters. The shark is there to remind us that humans only think they rule the world.