Best Shark Movies To Watch Before Seeing THE MEG

“You go in the cage, cage goes in the water, you go in the water. Shark’s in the water, our shark.” – Quint

On June 20, 1975 a thriller from a relatively unknown filmmaker was unleashed on unsuspecting theatre goers. Audiences witnessed, mostly from surface water level, the birth of the original Summer Blockbuster, Steven Spielberg’s JAWS. People had never seen this type of visceral carnage before in cinemas and subsequently it had a terrifying impact of beach goers that summer. There is something so primal and horrific about the now iconic scene of the dolly zoom on Martin Brody’s shocked face after Alex Kintner is attacked.

Based on the hit bestseller from author Peter Benchley, the suspense novel is the story of three men searching for a great white shark preying upon a beach resort. After first publication in February 1974, the novel was a great success, with the hardback staying on the bestseller list for some 44 weeks.

Summer is the perfect feeding ground for audiences looking to take a swim into theaters with Shark films. 1999 was the super fun DEEP BLUE SEA, 2016 was THE SHALLOWS, 2017 saw the release of 47 METERS DOWN, and in 2018 comes THE MEG from Warner Bros. Pictures.

Before you head out this weekend to see THE MEG, check out some of the gnarliest movie clips featuring the ocean’s (and a tornado’s?) most famous deadly predator… the shark!

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The science fiction action thriller THE MEG, directed by Jon Turteltaub, stars Jason Statham (“Spy,” “Furious 7,” “The Expendables” films) and Chinese actress Li Bingbing and swims into cinemas on August 10.

A deep-sea submersible—part of an international undersea observation program—has been attacked by a massive creature, previously thought to be extinct, and now lies disabled at the bottom of the deepest trench in the Pacific…with its crew trapped inside. With time running out, expert deep sea rescue diver Jonas Taylor (Statham) is recruited by a visionary Chinese oceanographer (Winston Chao), against the wishes of his daughter Suyin (Li Bingbing), to save the crew—and the ocean itself—from this unstoppable threat: a pre-historic 75-foot-long shark known as the Megalodon. What no one could have imagined is that, years before, Taylor had encountered this same terrifying creature. Now, teamed with Suyin, he must confront his fears and risk his own life to save everyone trapped below…bringing him face to face once more with the greatest and largest predator of all time.

You can listen to the powerful score from composer Harry Gregson-Williams HERE. ““For ‘The Meg,’ I set out to create a memorable recognizable sonic motif which follows the mystery of the great Megalodon—something robust in nature, which acted as a kind of warning call and instilled an immediate sense of fear and suspense when signaled. In search of this sound, I stumbled upon the conch as an instrument of musical focus. Its call was both distinctive and ancient, and I felt it offered a voice to the vast terror of a concealed underwater world.”

Check out our list of the best SHARK films.

JAWS

“…what we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It’s really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that’s all.”  That statement by Matt Hooper in JAWS is pretty much the thriller in a nutshell. It’s the eating part that horrified movie goers and ocean swimmers alike in 1975. Ringing the dinner bell for Bruce the Great White Shark consisted of terrifying sequences of teeth, fins, swimmers and blood and no one was safe from being killed off. Frank Rich of The New York Times wrote, “some of the most frightening sequences in Jaws are those where we don’t even see the shark.” That is until you heard John Williams’ scary score announcing his arrival. JAWS set the standard for edge-of-your seat suspense quickly becoming a cultural phenomenon and forever changing the movie industry. JAWS won 3 Oscars including Best Score, Editing and Best Sound and nominated for Best Picture. The final battle between the shark and Chief Brody is one of the best climactic endings in film history.

Without a doubt, Spielberg’s masterpiece is what make JAWS We Are Movie Geeks #1 pick as the behemoth of all shark movies.

OPEN WATER

Presented in the cinemas at HOLY CRAP water level,  and fully aware that this will not end well, OPEN WATER was a surprise hit out of the film festival circuit. It gave the whole phrase FREAK OUT MOVIE a new meaning. Two divers, a husband and wife, return to the surface only to discover that their charter has left and they are literally in open water. The ending is still chilling.

THE SHALLOWS

In the 2016 thriller THE SHALLOWS, Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing alone on a secluded beach when she is attacked by a great white shark and stranded just a short distance from shore. Though she is only 200 yards from her survival, getting there proves the ultimate contest of wills. “Surfing alone on a secluded beach” Okay, right there you’d have to ask yourself, should I be doing this? But then we wouldn’t have a movie – and one that was really, really terrific! Blake Lively was our hero during the  summer of 2016 with her courage, smarts and tenacity in facing the shark.

DEEP BLUE SEA

Have you ever heard the phrase, “white knuckling it”? Exactly describes Renny Harlin’s awesome, frenzied 1999 shark movie and it still grabs us every time it shows up on cable or Netflix. Good plan to alter sharks to make them smart and intelligent.  LL Cool J, and his snarky lines, express what the audience is thinking. “Ooh, I’m done! Brothers never make it out of situations like this! Not ever!” Playing the preacher and cook, he has the best scene in the film, even over Samuel L. Jackson’s demise, surviving the sharks by climbing into one of his stoves. Being trapped below the surface in a laboratory while sharks are hunting you down made for one scary ride.

47 METERS DOWN

When the first trailer was released showing the two sisters jumping into the cage to watch sharks on a holiday excursion, everyone thought these women were lining themselves up to be a hot lunch. And boy did they ever. Director Johannes Roberts’ 47 METERS DOWN film is RIDICULOUS scary! Besides the sharks, and plunging to the ocean floor… the movie was constantly showing how much air they had left, leaving the movie-goer in a full blown panic. Audiences screamed out loud like 3 times during the opening weekend. And the end is sooooooooo brutal!!!!!!! BRUTAL!!!! Moviegoers had all that shark terror in their head when they left the theater. The film left us scared witless and was a DEFINITE must-see in the theater.

LAKE PLACID

Yep, not a shark movie, but it may as well have been. It’s pretty much JAWS set on a lake, but it was so much fun the summer of 1999. First off, who in their right mind goes swimming in a lake? That’s what pools are for! But if you decide to venture into your nearby lake, you’re on your own and risk running into all sort of nasty beasties, including a gigantic killer crocodile.

And finally, the Syfy TV movie and social media phenom, “Sharknado“. We had to go with the ultimate clip, Chainsaw vs Jaws. Enjoy.

Contributed by Melissa Thompson, Cate Marquis and Michelle Hannett.