The Big Picture

Deep Blue Sea, a 1999 killer shark movie, has one of the most surprising and effective jump scares of all time, catching audiences off guard. Director Renny Harlin combines practical and CG effects, as well as a mix of famous and unknown actors, to create a thrilling and unpredictable film. The film tricks the audience into believing Samuel L. Jackson’s character is the hero, only to shockingly kill him off during a motivational speech, breaking movie logic and delivering a truly memorable jump scare.

The jump scare is a tried and true tool used by filmmakers to scare or surprise their audience. James Wan is a recent example of a director that has utilized this tactic numerous times, hitting the target more often than not. However, a killer shark movie from 1999 called Deep Blue Sea has one of the most surprising and effective jump scares of all time. Director Renny Harlin uses the B-movie premise of scientists experimenting on sharks to cure Alzheimer’s (!) in an underwater lab in the middle of the ocean and runs with it, crafting genuinely thrilling and well-executed set pieces. It’s a nice mixture of practical and CG effects with the sharks and plus the fact that Harlin used a mix of both very famous and mostly unknown actors (at least at the time) to keep audiences on their toes as to who can survive against the super smart sharks.

All of this builds to the moment in question, where the big hero of the film [REDACTED] gets chomped upright in the middle of a big motivational speech. The film itself has long been considered a rock-solid and fun horror thriller, but this moment, in particular, stands tall with the greatest jump scares of all time. Harlin actually cut his teeth with the horror genre at the beginning of his career when he directed A Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master. Thanks to the success of that film, the director landed the gig directing another hugely successful sequel, Die Hard 2: Die Harder. For the better part of the ’90s, Harlin stayed in the action genre with movies like Cliffhanger, Cutthroat Island, and The Long Kiss Goodnight. So, when Deep Blue Sea came along towards the end of the decade, the director was looking to combine his backgrounds and create his answer to that other, extremely successful killer shark movie you may or may not have heard about.

RELATED: Science Declares This Movie Moment as Horror’s Best Jump Scare

‘Deep Blue Sea’ Makes It Clear That It Isn’t Trying To Be ‘Jaws’

The opening of Deep Blue Sea is straight out of a slasher flick, with two young attractive couples enjoying a party of four on a boat seemingly in the middle of the ocean at night. The perfect meal for the genetically enhanced king of the ocean. Almost immediately, the boat is terrorized by something underneath the water, and Harlin perfectly ramps up the tension with hit after hit. Eventually, the killer breaks through, and the director gives the audience a nice clear view of the monster that looks as mean and frightening as Jason Voorhees or Michael Myers. While making Jaws, Steven Spielberg was famously forced to keep his star shark out of sight thanks to a seemingly cursed production. Here, Harlin takes advantage of 25 years’ worth of improvements in special effects since the first blockbuster, and shows off these villains in all their practical glory right off the bat, making it undeniably clear that this is not your dad’s shark movie.

Renny Harlin Makes Us Think Samuel L. Jackson Is the Hero of the Movie
Image Via Warner Bros.

From this point on, the movie delivers excellent action that has a healthy amount of practical sets and stunts, with Harlin only utilizing CG when he absolutely has to (not all of which has aged well, but even then it barely deters from the film’s inherently silly premise, thus making it easy to forgive). However, the film’s biggest magic trick is making the audience think that Samuel L. Jackson is the movie’s big hero. Like any good horror movie, Deep Blue Sea has an ensemble of characters just waiting to become lunch for the sharks, and part of the fun is seeing who makes it and who doesn’t.

The cast is filled with recognizable actors who either already had some experience with fame (Michael Rapaport, LL Cool J) or were about to (Thomas Jane would become a big screen version of Marvel’s The Punisher in 2004 and Stellan Skarsgårdhas gone on to star in the MCU, Star Wars, Dune and even fathered a movie star or two). Jackson, however, is the undeniable Big Name here. The leading man, at least presumably. His character, Russell Franklin, is the guy who shells out the $200 million to fund this scientific endeavor and is immediately introduced as not only mega-rich but also as a man who has a tragic yet heroic past that would surely come in handy should anything go wrong in this research facility under the sea.

The icing on the cake is Franklin’s relationship with Jane’s character, Carter Blake. Blake is the tough-as-nails shark wrangler with a dark past that has no love for suits like Franklin. In any other movie, the way Jackson takes Jane’s immediate jabs upon their first meeting with grace would suggest that by the end of the movie, these two survivors will have a newfound respect for one another, and that’s exactly what the filmmakers want the audience to think. The next hour of the movie seemingly supports this theory as we watch the sharks outsmart the humans at every turn, almost flooding the site completely while the crew struggles to safety. In the process, multiple characters meet their demise and Harlin makes sure each death is gruesome and apparent.

Samuel L. Jackson’s Death Scene Is a Perfect Jump Scare
Image via Warner Bros. 

Now, the entire time chaos has been present, Franklin is the one bringing order. He is the one calming everyone down with reason and logic. He is the one rallying the troops and giving them the confidence to survive. There’s one point in particular where group morale is at the bottom of the barrel. Multiple crew members have been taken out, and those remaining are freaking out, realizing that their final two options to survive is to either dive into the water and outswim the sharks to the surface, or open a door that could potentially bring millions of gallons of ocean water into the room and drown the facility completely. Franklin quickly stops this emotional downfall with an impassioned speech about what it takes to face not only nature but man as well. It’s rousing in all the right ways, and Franklin gives it his all. Even Blake, who has been weary of Franklin the entire time (and basically says it to his face), is finally starting to believe that this guy might have what it takes to get them out of there alive, and Harlin actually keeps cutting back to Blake during the speech, cementing this feeling.

The director has the audience right he wants us, fully pumped at this heroic speech and ready to see Sam Jackson and company pull themselves together and survive! And then, just as Franklin mentions that they should seal up the open pool right behind him, one of the sharks seemingly defies the laws of gravity and leaps out, giving Franklin a proper chomp before dragging him back into the pool. It’s completely out of left field, and seemingly breaks basic movie logic in the process. The hero can’t die! Yet here we are, witnessing the cold hard truth. The moment is captured in slow motion as well, which lets the reality of the moment hit even harder. Harlin immediately twists the knife too, cutting to a shot underwater where a second shark takes a bite into Franklin, tearing him in two. It’s a genuinely shocking and brutal death scene that no one sees coming, and Harlin knows it. He knows the audience expects/wants Franklin to live because he’s played by Samuel L. Jackson for crying out loud! The director understood the weight Jackson has with an audience and uses that against them which is a truly brilliant move. Horror filmmaking at its best. Let’s hope we get another jump scare of this quality in Harlin’s reboot of The Strangers.

Deep Blue Sea was released in the summer of 1999 and went on to gross $70 million domestically and $164 million worldwide off a $60 million budget making it a rock-solid summer hit. The film has remained popular throughout the years, even spawning two direct-to-video sequels and a big reason why it’s kept afloat in pop culture as well as it has is thanks to its genuinely shocking and effective jump scare. Although, Sam Jackson staying in the general zeitgeist for the following two decades certainly hasn’t hurt either.