{"id":82272,"date":"2024-10-11T17:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-11T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=82272"},"modified":"2024-10-11T14:39:43","modified_gmt":"2024-10-11T19:39:43","slug":"monster-movie-mayhem-orca-the-killer-whale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=82272","title":{"rendered":"Monster Movie Mayhem: Orca-The Killer Whale"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By CONNOR KEATING<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of 1975\u2019s summer blockbuster \u201cJAWS,\u201d a number of other animal attack films were made to cash in on the success of Speilberg\u2019s classic tale of three men\u2019s hunt for a giant shark. These movies would, of course, change up the monster to be some other kind of dangerous animal. Could be an Octopus, maybe a swarm of mutated Piranhas, or even a man-eating Grizzly bear, but many of these films would keep the general premise of \u201cJAWS\u201d the same, but one film, disguised as just another cash grab, came to subvert all expectations\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOrca-The Killer Whale,\u201d or simply \u201cOrca,\u201d follows Captain Nolan, a deep sea fisherman working off the coast of Canada who has been given the job of capturing an Orca alive. He\u2019s warned by a marine biologist named Dr. Bedford not to, but he doesn\u2019t listen. Nolan ends up capturing a pregnant female, who he accidentally kills while her mate watches in horror. Now, the male Orca is out for revenge! However, Nolan feels terrible for killing the female Orca and wants to move on, but the male Orca challenges Nolan by destroying all the other fishermen\u2019s ships, turning the other fishermen against Nolan. As the Orca begins to cause more chaos, it\u2019s clear that Nolan can\u2019t run away from this, and has to face the beast head-on.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The male Orca pushes his dead mate onto the beach near Nolan\u2019s home.
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The best way to describe the film is that it\u2019s a reverse \u201cMoby Dick.\u201d Rather than the whale hunter being out for revenge, it\u2019s the whale. It subverts what you\u2019d normally expect from a movie about a whale hunt, and as I alluded to earlier, the film skips many of the typical \u201cJAWS\u201d beats. Here, there\u2019s no sleazy mayor trying to keep the town open, or any attacks, aside from those specifically meant to antagonize Nolan. This story also helps to make Nolan a pretty sympathetic character. He accidentally killed the female Orca and its child and feels terrible about it and seriously wants the Orca to forgive him; however, the Orca\u2019s rampage ends up driving him to madness until he\u2019s forced by not just the whale, but the town, to slay the beast.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other characters aren\u2019t nearly as in-depth or interesting, though. Dr. Bedford is definitely one of the better ones. She\u2019s a scientist, so she understands Orcas and wants to protect them. This leads to some interesting moments between her and Nolan, sometimes disagreeing and other times just trying to figure out what the heck to do in this crazy situation. There\u2019s also this Native American guy named Umilak who adds a mystical element to the whale and tries to help Nolan defeat it. There are a few other characters, like Nolan\u2019s crew, his daughter, and the various town folk, but none of them are too noteworthy. By far, the strongest aspect of the film is Nolan and his relationship with the whale.<\/p>\n\n\n

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The Orca prepares to finish off Nolan during their final battle in the North Atlantic.
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Speaking of, the Orca in this film is quite terrifying. I\u2019d go as far to say it may be scarier than the shark in \u201cJAWS\u201d, because unlike the shark, which is portrayed as a mindless killing machine, the Orca here is a thinking animal that is out specifically for Nolan, and the things this whale will do to get its battle at sea are insane. I won\u2019t spoil it, but let’s just say, this whale does a lot more than just try to eat people\u2026 but don\u2019t worry, he does that too. I will say, the film does drag a bit when Nolan and his crew set off after the Orca, as the whale literally leads them all the way to the North Pole in order to have the final showdown, and this section really does slow the film down a bit, but for the rest of it, it\u2019s almost constant tension or action. Because of the Orca\u2019s intelligence, it makes him feel a lot more like an actual character with a specific motive and goal. While you feel bad for Nolan, you similarly feel bad for the Orca who lost his family to this man, it all helps to make the final battle much more impactful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effects for the whale are primarily done with a real Orca for most of the film. Occasionally they use a life-size killer whale prop that doesn\u2019t look the best, but it\u2019s used sparingly. The film also uses this mildly goofy effect a lot where they project the whale over the background footage, so sometimes the Orca will just be transparent. It\u2019s kinda funny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The soundtrack in the film is also a highlight. It was composed by Ennio Morricone, who\u2019s best known for the \u201cDollars Trilogy\u201d soundtrack, and you can definitely hear it a bit in this. Makes you wonder if he hired the same lady to do the vocals. The soundtrack has a unique mix of slow, haunting, and melancholy pieces, as well as tracks that are definitely trying to emulate that classic \u201cJAWS\u201d theme.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOrca\u201d is a surprisingly good movie. I wouldn\u2019t say it\u2019s high art or anything like that, but for what should be a \u201cJAWS\u201d cash grab, it manages to stand up on its own. The plot is interesting and unique, the protagonist is solid, and the whale itself feels more like an actual character than most movie monsters. Combine that with some intense scenes and a great soundtrack and you\u2019ve got a solid movie. I give this film seven \u201cOrca Screaming SFX\u201d out of ten!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Connor Keating is a senior at Fort Hays State University, studying Natural Resources. Connor is an old-school movie fan, particularly Japanese monster movies, and is an avid DVD collector.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By CONNOR KEATING Tiger Media Network In the wake of 1975\u2019s summer blockbuster \u201cJAWS,\u201d a number of other animal attack films were made to cash… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":82276,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[56,3391,3505,55],"tags":[15389,15388,15912],"class_list":["post-82272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-movie-reviews","category-local-movies","category-opinion","tag-connor-keating","tag-monster-movie-mayhem","tag-the-orca"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/orcaposter.jpg?fit=820%2C426&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82277,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82272\/revisions\/82277"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/82276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}