With this being the 25th anniversary of Jaws, it seemed only sensible to bring back the giant fleece shark. With improvements, of course.

We had three goals: make the shark more animated, add a video projection on the door for an additional scare, and add projections on the house for improved atmosphere. Not everything went to plan, but as the song says, two out of three ain’t bad.

In 2010, our Jaws display had a talking Quint. This year we upgraded the talking skeleton with a cap for his head and a flotation barrel for him to lean against while also hiding the speaker system. He also got his own retro-reflective proximity sensor to trigger the spiel and cycle through his recordings and a 12-pack of Narraganset. The beer, as it turns out, was critical in helping people identify the character. More than one parent was heard saying “Look, it’s Quint. He’s got a ‘Ganset!”

This year the house got a video loop taken from the film opening. We were able to rip a long enough shot of the ocean at dusk that could be looped. The buoy gong relentlessly ringing in the distance with the ocean waves gently lapping, provide simultaneous feelings of relaxation and foreboding. It is part of the genius of the movie: You don’t need to see the shark. You feel the shark.

Having Quint rest against the yellow barrel was another reminder of the shark; If you see the barrel, you know the shark is near. We did, however, have a shark. Actually two sharks. 

The first shark was our own Bruce the Shark, this year outfitted with a pneumatic system to articulate the tail in addition to snapping the jaws shut. This unfortunately was our failure for the year. It was grossly under-engineered and was barely able to move under its own weight once assembled.

The second shark was a projection on the door. It’s pretty amazing what you can buy on the Internet these days. Luckily for us, a shark animation video was readily available. All we had to do was cut it to size and load it in the video player.

If anyone was scared, it wasn’t either of the sharks that did the work. The truly terrifying moment came when the blood curdling scream of the girl being eaten at the top of the film was played at a distressingly high volume. Actually, the audio in the film isn’t that scary. There’s a whole lot of “Oh, God. I can’t believe I’m being chewed upon.” That goes on for a bit longer than you might remember, so it was edited down to the most gruesome shrieks. And with a little gurgle at the end for good measure.

For our own personal amusement, we added a second talking skeleton that quoted Brody saying “That’s some bad hat Harry.” Since it has been used by a TV production company (Bad Hat Harry Productions) in a logo at the end of several shows, we made it play when our 220 trick-or-treaters were on their way out. Good on anyone who got that.