Jaws 2 | 1978
- Locations |
- Massachusetts;
- Florida
- DIRECTOR |
- Jeannot Szwarc
Without Steven Spielberg’s genius for staging set pieces and a contractually-obliged Roy Scheider reluctantly aboard, this is a boring plod from one chomping to the next.
The darker, more plot/character driven film to have been helmed by John D Hancock, who’d directed Robert De Niro in 1973 baseball weepie Bang The Drum Slowly, was dumped for the cheesier teens-in-peril storyline and the director replaced.
It’s back to Martha’s Vineyard for 'Amity Island' with Edgartown once again portraying the main town. Although the press reels off Chappaquiddick; Oak Bluffs; Menemsha; Gay Head; East Chop; Squibnocket; Vineyard Haven; Sengekontacket; Harthaven; Katama; Mattekeeset; Takemmy Trail; Chilmark; Pohognut and Mayhew Lane as the Vineyard locations, production delays meant that many of the beach scenes were eventually shot at Navarre Beach on the Gulf of Mexico, off Route 98 between Pensacola and Fort Walton Beach, in the northwest Florida panhandle.
The bar in which the kids hang out was the Hog’s Breath Saloon on Okaloosa Island, the 'barrier island' between Fort Walton Beach and Destin The Hog’s Breath has since relocated to 541 Harbor Boulevard in Destin itself, which is less susceptible to hurricanes.
There is no ‘Cable Junction’, the little island shown in the film's climax was a floating barge dressed with fibreglass rocks and an unfortunate propensity for coming loose and floating away.
