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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Aug. 4, 2005)
■ Forgotten film Head of a school of 'Jaws' wannabes is a vengeful killer whale "Orca" beats out alligators and piranhas with its existential battle between whale and fisherman BY RYAN NYBURG PULSE EDITOR Through much of the 1970s (and some of the early 1980s) theaters were stuffed with cheap rip-offs of “Jaws.” It was not surprising, consid ering that film’s phenomenal success. Producers were practically scouring the waters for anything that swam that they could put on a poster to draw the summer crowds. “Alliga tor,” “Alligator II: The Mutation,” “Crocodile,” “Piranha,” “Piranha Part Two: The Spawning” and so on and so forth. There were of course also the three “Jaws” sequels, which pretty much count as rip offs of the original because they lacked any of the suspense (“Jaws 2”), often descended into camp (“Jaws 3-D”) and were often just plain mediocre (“Jaws: The Re venge”). This trend even devel oped into some modern incarna tions, such as the two “Anaconda” movies, as well as “Deep Rising” and other forget table claptrap. Like any small niche genre, this one did produce some interesting variations, despite the reels and reels of crap. One such variation was a little-known 1977 film about a man’s desperate fight with a killer whale, entitled “Orca.” You can imagine how this film was pitched just from some of the poster art, which depicts a large whale rising out of the wa ter, its teeth looking menacingly at the viewer. But while the film sets itself up as a standard “Jaws” wannabe (it even opens with a killer whale slaughtering a great white shark) it ends as something more interesting. The story concerns a profes sional fisherman Nolan (Richard Har ris) working to pay off the mortgage on his boat. He makes an ill-con ceived attempt to capture a live killer whale and ends up killing a pregnant female one. The dead whale’s mate follows him to shore to seek revenge, beginning by jumping out of the wa ter and swallowing the first mate. The whale then takes its vengeance to shore, sinking ships, smashing gas pipes and destroying harbors. The whale’s mental capacity would come off as hard to believe if the film didn’t have the whole thing narrated by a local professor of ma rine biology (Charlotte Ramping), who explains that orcas have a re markable intelligence, mate for life and have a sophisticated communi cation system. It makes for some clumsy exposition, but gets the point across. (Though this doesn’t help in a sequence where the whale causes a major explosion ashore. The film is probably giving the whale’s brain a little too much credit there). Soon the local fishermen have turned against Nolan because he re fuses to go out and kill the whale, which is driving away all the fish, and he finds himself slowly being run out of town. When the whale maims Courtesy another of his crew members, he re solves to hunt it down. This leads to the film’s finale, which is when things really get going. The story has slowly stripped itself of its exploita tion film elements and becomes a stark existential battle between Nolan and the whale. The fishermen chase the creature far into the frozen north for a final battle. Here the movie fi nally strikes a consistent tone, ending on a grim, thoughtful note. Had the entire film kept this tone, it would have a been small classic in its own right. As it stands it is a good, though uneven, piece of 1970s sus pense film making. Tyannyburg@dailyemercdd.com tfj.'lOU SPAGHETTI <S garlic bread S3H Every Tuesday PIZZA PETE’S 2506 Willakenzie 344-0998 fllIC/C Plst7st 2673 Willamette 484-0996 27//» an// Willamette IN BRIEF Lane ARTS Council will offer guided gallery tour Lane ARTS Council is gearing up for the monthly First Friday Art Walk — a tour through five differ ent art galleries in downtown Eu gene on Friday, August 5. The non profit community organization supports this free event, as well as Lane County art and artists. Cultural Services director for the Hult Center Robb Hankins will host the tour, which begins at 5:30 p.m. at the Jacobs Gallery, located on the lower level of the Hult Center. From there the tour will continue to White Lotus Gallery at 767 Willamette St., Tibet’s Fine Design at 80 E. Broadway, New Zone Art Collective at 975 Oak Alley and DIVA at 110 W. Broadway. For more information contact Lane ARTS Council at 485-2278. — Nicholas Wilbur Premier Travel j 1011 Harlow 747-0909 . 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