Sharksploitation

Matt Roush says...

Biting the hand of the genre that sometimes feeds it, the horror streamer gets in front of Shark Week (starting Sunday on Discovery) with a documentary exploring pop culture’s fascination with the terror elicited by sharks ever since Jaws ignited the summer blockbuster trend in the 1970s. “The shark is natural monster in the ocean,” offers cult director/producer Roger Corman (Sharktopus, Dinoshark). Others fishing for answers to why sharks on screen are so popular: director Joe Dante (Piranha), screenwriter Carl Gottlieb (the first three Jaws movies), actor Mario Van Peebles (Jaws the Revenge) and Jaws author Peter Benchley’s widow Wendy, now an environmental conservation advocate.

What's Worth Watching (Jul 21)