Jaws 2 (1978)

Four years after the events of Jaws, Chief Brody has PTSD and evidence of a new shark attack has made its way to Amity Island, to everyone's skepticism. You'd think those ungrateful assholes would believe poor Brody by now.

Roy Scheider reluctantly returns in this cash-in sequel that Steven Spielberg completely removed his name from, which manages to take all the terror and adventure out of the original and distill it down to a lifeless cycle of shark, kill, repeat. It emulates enough of the original that it's still watchable, but it's basically a retread in every way. It turns out lightning couldn't strike twice.

2½ power cables out of 5

JAWS [1975]

Director Steven Spielberg successfully scared people out of the water with his man vs nature adventure/thriller Jaws.
A sleepy island town is flipped upside down when a 20 foot long Great White Shark starts making tasty meals out of it's panicked citizens.
Effectively proving that showing more is less, Spielberg raises the b-movie premise into a top-class popcorn blockbuster that's endless nail-biting fun.  Like many of his films of the time it's about obsession and mostly chooses to ignore the potential social class themes floating around but never thoroughly studied.  There's some wonderful camera work made even better with John Williams' ominously simple iconic music and the late great Robert Shaw, who knows exactly what type of film he's in and has great old time playing it up for the camera with delightful exaggeration.

5 scars out of 5

The Amityville Horror (1979)

The first of many not-very-good films in the Amityville series is a haunted house story based on reportedly true events.
Newly-weds Lois Lane and a long-lost Gibb brother occupy 112 Ocean Avenue, a house in which a vicious murder spree took place one year before. Soon afterwards their life takes on a murderous slant.
Acting is good most of the time and there's a violent unease helped along by excellent editing between past and present in the first half hour, but then things go sour. It drags on and on, desperately trying to make the boring crap that married couples engage in seem interesting.
The Lalo Schifrin score and the occasional creepy event were the only things preventing me from making good use of the stop button.

2½ ax games out of 5