Orca: The Killer Whale (1977) Review

WEEK 5: SOMETHING SMELLS FISHY

Orca: The Killer Whale (1977) Review

It’s already here, the final week of this year’s Creepy Cinema! As I’m sure you know by now, many consider Jaws to be the movie that officially kicked off the sub-genre of natural horror films, so for the next few days, I’m going back to the place where it all started: the ocean. First up is Orca: The Killer Whale, which might possibly be the biggest Jaws rip-off of all. Sure, many other sea animals have attacked people in movies, but Orca rips the concept of a large, sea-dwelling top predator that attacks a small village and spurs a hunter to pursue it right out of the Jaws playbook and runs with it, with some interesting results.

The movie opens with intimate footage of killer whales in their natural habitat. Then it cuts to a scuba diver, who is spotted by a looming great white shark. That’s right, the star of Jaws himself makes an appearance in Orca. There’s an attack on the shark, which is confusingly filmed (more on that later), and the orca kills it with little trouble. Then, all of a sudden, it transitions to a university lecture on orcas. And then, even more suddenly, it transitions to a small coastal town in Newfoundland and the whale expert starts narrating the film! The narration then disappears until near the end of the movie (why they put any narration in I’m not sure, but I think it was a last-minute decision). 

 

A hunter/captain named Nolan decides to hunt down the orca so he can sell it, and he tries to harpoon the creature, but harpoons another whale instead, which turns out to be a female. The harpooning scene is cruel, but because of the screaming sound effects the whale makes, it comes off as a little unintentionally funny. The whale tries to kill itself on the boat propeller, but he hauls it up anyway, and then in a truly disturbing and surprising moment, a dead fetus falls out of the whale. The female whale dies, and in an act of vengeance, the male whale pursues Nolan, pressuring him to come and fight on the open sea. Nolan must decide whether to leave the creature alone, or kill it before it kills him.

Beyond just the plot, Orca tries to imitate Jaws by being both an action-packed creature feature and a nail-biting thriller, but it doesn’t do either particularly well. It also tries to be poignant and emotional, but it mostly fails at this, too, because the visual effects simply don’t suffice. There’s a variety of effects used—projections of breaching whales, real-life whales in the wild, whales in captivity, animatronics, even some miniatures—but the effects are wildly inconsistent, and the footage of the whales often goes on for too long. Typically, but not always, the attacking animal in a film should be shown briefly for the most part, and when it is shown, should be done so to maximum effect. In Orca, the shots of the whales swimming and jumping and doing their business drag on, and it ruins any possibility of them looking ferocious. An orca looks too majestic to be scary anyway, but I'm sure there were ways that could have made it a little more ominous.

Remember when Quint gets introduced in Jaws, with the nails on the chalkboard and his proposal to hunt down the shark? Remember when Matt Hooper first arrives in Amity as everyone is going out to catch the shark and he tries to warn some of the locals? These were memorable character introductions. In Orca, no one gets an effective intro, and it’s hard to relate to them as a result. No one is particularly likeable, and I’m not even sure who the main protagonist is. It seems like it should be Nolan, but he’s a drunk asshole who’s trying to kill whales. It’s not the whale expert, who is uppity, cold, and emotionless, and it’s not the First Nations guy who is only there for one reason; to quote him directly: “I’ve come only to warn you.” I think the killer whale is the protagonist. I mean, he didn’t do anything wrong—in fact, he saved Nolan and his crew from the shark, and then they killed his family, so of course he’s going to try to kill them. It’s like Jaws: The Revenge, only with a whale, and not nearly as terrible.

There are tons of inconsistencies throughout this movie and little things that make no sense, many of which I found forgivable, but some were really frustrating. For example, there’s a scene where the whale attacks a girl in a house on the water, and it makes one of its echolocation screams, which shatters her wine glass. What the hell is that all about? The movie tries to make the killer whales out to be as realistic as possible, but then there’s stupid stuff like that put in for no reason. Was it supposed to be scary? That’s another huge problem: this movie is not scary, and that’s largely because of the direction. I already mentioned the strangely filmed attack on the shark, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a scene where the orca sinks a couple boats in the harbour, and there’s no tension or even real concern. There’s also a lot of weird slow motion photography used sporadically—again, not scary, just odd.

Orca is a very somber movie, and is totally devoid of any comic relief, which I found to be a big detriment overall. A lot of the story comes off pretty heavy handed, and it’s difficult to take very seriously. While there are some interesting ideas and moments in the first act, like so many sub-par killer animal films, the second act is incredibly dull, and it’s not until the third act that most of the action takes place. Much of the second act constitutes Nolan’s indecisiveness about whether or not to hunt the whale. It goes on for far too long, but once he does decide to hunt it and the chase is on, it almost becomes so-bad-it’s-good. The ending is pretty crazy and by far the best part, because he leads the orca to the frozen Strait of Belle Isle and fights it among icebergs and ice sheets. The effects are as rubber as they come, and the action is hilariously bad. 

Orca: The Killer Whale is what you might call a mixed bag. It has some good moments, some boring parts, and some ridiculous scenes, but as a whole, feels slapped together, lacks the fun present in the best killer animal movies, and is really badly paced. But, I don’t think it’s fair to write it off as just another Jaws rip-off, though it may be. There’s a little more to it than that.