Ethan Miller’s nervous reaction went largely unnoticed because he was far from the only person in the screening room who had been frightened.
Nearly everyone attending the advance screening was already a horror fan, yet none of them had experienced a movie quite like Jaws, especially with its unusually precise sound and that inexplicable sense of danger beneath the water.
The film seemed to awaken an instinctive fear that ordinary ghosts, killers, and monsters rarely touched anymore.
Ethan could hear people whispering behind him.
“I never realized sharks could be that terrifying.
I was thinking about taking a beach vacation during winter break, but now I’m reconsidering.” Someone else laughed nervously and replied, “It’s still just a movie.
Great whites don’t spend their lives hunting people.”
“Sure, attacks are rare, but did you see those articles people were sharing? Those animals can get huge.” The first speaker lowered his voice.
“Knowing they normally leave people alone doesn’t exactly help if one happens to be underneath you.”
As the movie moved beyond Chrissie Watkins’s death and into the main story, the atmosphere gradually became less oppressive.
Only then did Ethan realize Claire was still holding his hand, and a warm feeling immediately replaced some of the lingering fear in his chest.
He had originally brought her here hoping she would become frightened and cling to him, yet somehow he had ended up being the one she comforted.
Holding Claire’s hand gave Ethan considerably more courage, and he began concentrating seriously on the movie.
Once he stopped thinking about how embarrassing his earlier reaction had been, he realized Jaws was far better made than he had expected.
The sound design was extraordinary, but the story structure, pacing, framing, and editing impressed him even more.
What surprised Ethan most was how long the director refused to clearly show the shark.
For much of the first half, danger was created through underwater perspective, character reactions, partial glimpses, the movement of the ocean, and carefully timed sound rather than constant creature shots.
That restraint kept the audience imagining what might be beneath the surface, which somehow made the unseen shark more frightening than if it had been shown immediately.
Ethan stared at the screen with growing admiration.
Who the hell directed this?
By the second half, the shark finally began appearing clearly as Brody, Hooper, and Quint pursued it aboard the Orca.
Once Ethan could actually see the great white, much of his fear of the unknown faded, although the animal itself remained physically intimidating.
Claire had the opposite reaction; the first clear view of the shark made her tense and instinctively lean toward Ethan.
This time, Ethan was prepared.
He squeezed her hand and whispered, “Relax. It’s only a movie.”
Claire gave him a suspicious sideways look, clearly remembering who had nearly jumped out of his seat earlier, but she didn’t pull away.
Ethan decided not to mention the hypocrisy.
The final confrontation kept the entire screening room quiet.
Quint’s death drew several horrified gasps, and when Brody finally destroyed the shark by shooting the compressed-air tank lodged in its mouth, applause broke out from several rows before the movie had even completely ended.
By the time Brody and Hooper began making their way back toward shore, the tension inside the room had turned into excited conversation.
When the lights came up, Silverline staff thanked everyone for attending and handed out small promotional keychains shaped like great white sharks.
Ethan and Claire waited in line for theirs before leaving the screening room together.
Neither seemed to notice that they were still holding hands until they were already outside. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
They continued messaging after returning to their respective dorms, and their conversation lasted far later than usual.
By the time Claire finally said goodnight, Ethan was lying in bed grinning at his phone and feeling far too excited to sleep.
After several restless minutes, he opened his favorite horror forum instead.
He created a new thread.
Jaws Is the Best Horror Movie I’ve Seen in Years
Ethan began typing under the username he had used for years.
I went to an advance screening of Jaws tonight, and I’m saying this without exaggeration: it’s the best new horror movie I’ve seen in a long time.
He explained that horror releases in recent years had become predictable, with too many movies recycling the same psychological twists, familiar killers, or old folklore concepts.
Jaws, however, used something completely different—a real animal presented as an unseen threat in an environment where humans were helpless.
According to Ethan, that simplicity was exactly what made it work.
The shark isn’t some supernatural demon.
It’s just a huge great white, but this movie made me more afraid of dark ocean water than any ghost movie has made me afraid of my bedroom.
Ethan then praised the sound.
I don’t know what they did during postproduction, but this is some of the best sound design I’ve heard in any movie recently.
When the camera goes underwater, you don’t just hear water from the speakers.
It feels like the sound is moving around you.
He was equally enthusiastic about the visual effects.
The shark looks ridiculously convincing.
There were moments when I genuinely forgot I was looking at an effect and started wondering how they filmed some of this safely.
I’m not spoiling the climax, but the last act is worth the ticket by itself.
Then Ethan added the most important part.
Also, apparently this movie works as a dating strategy.
He attached a photograph showing two great-white-shark keychains beside his and Claire’s joined hands.
Your boy might actually have a girlfriend now.
The thread exploded overnight.
Ethan had been active in the community for years, so many regular users immediately recognized his username and flooded the replies.
Some accused him of being paid by Silverline, while others who had attended different advance screenings enthusiastically confirmed that the movie was far better than expected.
Seriously?
Mark Anderson’s movie?
Didn’t his last film bomb?
I was at the New York preview tonight.
He’s not exaggerating.
Go see this.
Forget the shark, when did Ethan get a girl?
Wait, where can I get advance-screening tickets?
Discussion about Ethan’s unexpected romantic success mixed with growing curiosity about Jaws.
Several users shared the thread in Discord groups, Reddit communities, private chats, and other horror forums, while people who had already attended screenings began posting their own reactions.
Without Silverline buying large national advertisements, the movie’s name started appearing repeatedly inside the exact communities Mark had targeted.
The strategy worked better than expected.
Silverline had arranged small advance screenings in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Boston, and several other major markets leading up to the October 30 release.
Early sessions had sold at a reasonable pace, but within a few days tickets began disappearing almost immediately after becoming available.
By the final week, most preview screenings were selling out.
Requests for additional sessions appeared everywhere.
People complained online that Silverline was deliberately making tickets impossible to obtain, while horror fans begged organizers to add more seats.
Megan Carter repeatedly forwarded those requests to Mark, but he refused to expand the previews.
Scarcity was part of the strategy.
Mark didn’t need preview-screening revenue.
He needed packed rooms, sold-out notices, waiting lists, audience reactions, and numbers he could place directly in front of theater buyers.
Every person unable to secure a preview ticket increased anticipation for the actual release.
Theaters cared about numbers far more than enthusiasm.
Mark knew that better than anyone.
His previous science-fiction disaster had damaged his reputation with exhibitors, and when Silverline first approached theater chains about Jaws, the response had been brutally cautious.
Several chains were willing to test the movie, but collectively they offered Silverline barely one percent of their available showtimes in the relevant locations.
For many theaters, that meant only one late-night showing each day.
Mark had nearly exploded when he saw the proposal.
A movie couldn’t become a box-office success if audiences barely had an opportunity to buy tickets.
Fortunately, the advance screenings changed the conversation.
Sellouts continued, online discussion accelerated, and horror communities began treating Jaws like something people needed to experience before someone spoiled it for them.
Even viewers who initially knew nothing about Mark Anderson were now searching for the title.
Two days before release, the numbers were finally strong enough.
Mark closed the latest preview report and looked across the conference table at Evelyn Parker.
“This should be enough.”
Evelyn nodded.
It was time to negotiate again.
That afternoon, Mark Anderson and Evelyn Parker headed to the headquarters of CrownStar Theatres, one of the major theater chains carrying Jaws, determined to get the movie more showtimes before October 30.
(End of Chapter 17)