To: The Philosopher who wrote (52303 ) 8/20/1999 1:53:00 PM From: jbe Read Replies (3) | Respond to
That "Jaws" item is not as trivial as you might think.did spoil our swimming outings off our sailboat. We would jump into the water, start paddling about happily, and then one of the kids (inevitably!) would yell "Jaws!" and, despite ourselves, we would all panic and scramble back into the boat, hearts pounding...really shocking about "Jaws" was that, a child was among the first victims. You remember that little boy on the beach, who gets gobbled up? Well, that broke a long-standing taboo. In the horror movie tradition, children were often threatened by The Monster, but some Responsible Adult always stepped in to save the child (often losing his own life in the process). The underlying message was reassuring for children (who constituted the main audience for such films): there are scary things out there, but Mom or Dad or Your Teacher or The Policeman or whoever will protect you. was a haunted-house movie, but hardly an old-fashioned one. Seems the house is possessed by an evil spirit, which then possesses the mother (a cross-eyed Karen Black), who then proceeds to try to kill off her little boy, by remote control. First, the swimming pool
