JAWS 3 (1983)

Sheriff Brody's eldest son is now a big wig at the Sea World in Florida.  While his younger brother is in town for a visit, a gigantic Great White shark sneaks into the facility and starts eating people, I'm guessing (in light of the personal vendetta nature of Part 4) in an attempt to eat the two boys.

The idea of Jaws stealthily eating people in a water park is so fucking ridiculous that I can't believe they made a big budget Hollywood movie about it, but they did and it's way dumber than you can even imagine.  Not only did they play the entire thing seriously, but it's shot in a hokey 3D fashion which results in nonstop things pointing towards the camera. It gets old quick. JAWS 3 is a cheesy, entertaining train wreck that's a lot of fun to laugh at. I'm not sure if that's what the filmmakers were going for, but JAWS 3 is a great comedy.

If you are looking for a serious JAWS movie, this isn't it. It's not a horrible film, but I doubt anybody has ever taken it seriously.  Although, I do remember seeing this movie as a kid and that hand in the mouth scene freaked me out.

Part 1 - Jaws (1975)
Part 2 - Jaws 2 (1978)
Part 4 - Jaws: The Revenge (1987)

NEEDFUL THINGS (1993)

Extremely watered down version of Stephen King's classic novel about an elderly gentleman, Leland Gaunt, who opens a mysterious antique shop in the quiet town of Castle Rock, Maine. Sounds innocent enough except that Leland Gaunt is actually an ancient and sinister creature who sells more than antiques. What he sells are people's secret desires and he doesn't accept money, instead he only accepts deeds and in this way he slowly turns all of the people in Castle Rock against each other. In the book there's much, much more going on but in this slimmed down movie version it's pretty cut and dry. It is nice seeing the town of Castle Rock brought to life, but there is just so much missing that honestly I wish they had never even made this movie. It would have been better off as a one season TV series on HBO. I did go through the trouble of finding and purchasing the three hour version and it is better, but the picture is so goddamn dreadful that I couldn't even watch it all (screenshots below).

If you've never read the book and you have no intention of reading the book, then I guess this movie version is entertaining enough, but the violence is weak and the whole thing just seems like a smaller version of something much bigger. I can't recommend it.  The only bright spot is Max von Sydow as Leland Gaunt.  He's excellent. Read the book and just forget this movie even exists.

Three hour version screenshots: