Shark Attack - The Killer Is Back

In the New England beach town of Amity Island, a young woman goes for a late-night ocean swim. An unseen force attacks and pulls her underwater. Her partial remains are found washed up on the beach the next morning. After the coroner concludes it was a shark attack, Amity police chief Martin Brody plans to close the beaches. Mayor Larry Vaughn persuades him to reconsider, fearing the town's summer economy will suffer. The coroner, apparently under pressure, now concurs with the mayor's theory that it was a boating accident. Brody reluctantly accepts their conclusion until young Alex Kintner is killed at a crowded beach. A $3,000 bounty is placed on the shark, causing an amateur shark-hunting frenzy. Quint, an eccentric local shark hunter, offers his services for $10,000. Consulting oceanographer Matt Hooper examines the girl's remains, confirming she was killed by an unusually large shark. When local fishermen catch a tiger shark, Vaughn declares the beaches safe. A skeptical Hooper dissects the shark and, finding no human remains inside its stomach, concludes the killer shark is still active. While searching the night waters in Hooper's boat, Hooper and Brody find the half-sunken boat of Ben Gardner, a local fisherman. Hooper dons a scuba suit and goes underwater to check the boat's hull and finds a large shark tooth embedded into it. He drops the tooth after encountering Gardner's severed head. Vaughn dismisses Brody and Hooper's assertions that a great white shark caused the deaths and refuses to close the beaches, allowing only increased safety precautions. On the Fourth of July weekend, tourists pack the beaches. The shark enters a nearby lagoon, killing a boater and nearly killing Brody's son, Michael, who is hospitalized with shock. Brody then convinces a guilt-ridden Vaughn to hire Quint. Despite initial tension between Quint and Hooper, and Brody's fear of the ocean, the three head out to sea on Quint's boat, the Orca, to hunt for the shark. As Brody lays down a chum line, the shark suddenly appears behind the boat. Quint, estimating it is 25 feet (7.6 m) long and weighs 3 tonnes (3.0 long tons; 3.3 short tons), harpoons it with a line attached to a flotation barrel, but the shark pulls it underwater and disappears. At nightfall, Quint and Hooper drunkenly exchange stories about their assorted body scars. One of Quint's is a removed tattoo; he reveals that during World War II, he survived the sinking of the USS Indianapolis, during which sharks killed many U.S. sailors. The shark returns, ramming the boat's hull and disabling the power. The men work through the night, repairing the engine. In the morning, Brody attempts to call the Coast Guard, but Quint, obsessed with killing the shark without outside assistance, smashes the radio. After a long chase, Quint harpoons the shark with another barrel. The line is tied to the stern cleats, but the shark drags the boat backward, swamping the deck and flooding the engine compartment. As Quint is about to sever the line to save the boat's transom, the cleats break off; the barrels stay attached to the shark. To Brody's relief, Quint speeds the Orca toward shore to draw the shark into shallower waters, but the damaged engine fails. As the boat takes on water, the trio attempt a riskier approach. Hooper suits up and enters a shark-proof cage, intending to lethally inject the shark with strychnine via a hypodermic spear. The shark attacks the cage, causing Hooper to drop the spear. While the shark destroys the cage, Hooper escapes to the ocean bottom. The shark leaps onto the boat's stern, subsequently devouring Quint. Trapped on the sinking vessel, Brody thrusts a scuba tank into the shark's mouth and, climbing onto the crow's nest, shoots the tank with a rifle. The resulting explosion kills the shark. Hooper resurfaces and he and Brody paddle back to shore, clinging to the remaining barrels. ^ Hamscha, Susanne (2013). The Fiction of America: Performance and the Cultural Imaginary in Literature and Film. p. 221. The film is set on Amity Island, a fictional place off the Massachusetts coast... ^ Thomas, Tony (1997). The Best of Universal. p. 26. the sandy shores of Amity Island off the Massachusetts coast...