jaws

[char_1990]

what was the highest point of tension in the film jaws?

[dot.hawkes]

Where richard Dreyfuss is dropping bait over the side of the boat and the shark comes over the side, his face was a picture!!!!! , that is tense,!!!!!!! Though maybe that is shock for the first time viewer not tension, when the clever reverese camera shot pulls brady's face towards us

[Whickerman]

DAH NAH....DAH NAH.....DADADADADADADADADADADA

Anytime the music plays. New pants time.

[naz_nomad]

Just before the ''we need a bigger boat'' comment

[sithlord]

Whickermans right about the tension. The biggest shock was the severed head floating out of the sunken boat!!!

[sheffwed39]

the end credits.

[Litchick]

For me, I think it was in the very beginning when you first see the swimmer (Chrissy) getting pulled down. Because it's all dark and you don't know when the shark is going to attack.....

[joko]

just before he says "smile you son of a betch" - got to be!

In the 2nd its just before it bites the electic pole

3rd was the realisation that your partner had rented it from the vid shop, coupled with crushing disappointment.

[Backdrifter]

Some of the bits where the shark submerged and they didn't know when it was going to reappear

The guy trying to swim back to the wrecked jetty

Some of the early beach scenes when you know there's going to be an attack

Paul Shone's book Blockbuster contains a graph of audience reactions of Jaws - the biggest being the severed head, a scene filmed hurriedly long after the main shooting had ended.

(Pedantic point - it's Roy Scheider who's "chumming" when the shark rears out of the water and who then makes the "bigger boat" comment.)

[joko]

severed head???

do you mean the dead bloke in the boat whose body shifts and his head suddenly appears through a hole just as dreyfuss gets close to the hull?

don't remember a severed head...but it has been a while...

[Backdrifter]

Yes, the head had been divorced from the body