For what some have discounted as just another Jaws rip-off, Orca provides enough originality to be worth watching for genre fans.
Captain Nolan (Richard Harris) captures sea creatures and sells them to aquariums for a living. He’s currently hunting a great white shark, for which he claims he can get as much as $250,000. When Nolan’s boat meanders into a diving zone occupied by a whale researcher, Rachel (Charlotte Rampling), he sees a great white injured and driven off by an animal unknown to him. “There’s only one creature in the world that can do that: a killer whale,” Rachel solemnly tells him. Suddenly, Nolan’s attention turns from capturing a great white to bagging a killer whale.
Despite warnings from Rachel, who attempts to educate Nolan that killer whales, also known as orcas, are possibly more intelligent than humans and not just simple fish, Nolan heads out to sea. Nolan assures Rachel that he doesn’t want to kill the whale, just capture it. However, his hunt goes horribly wrong. Nolan’s harpoon misses the intended target — a male killer whale — and impacts on a pregnant female. When Nolan hauls the female onboard, it aborts the fetus onto the deck of the boat. The male, emitting anguished screams, watches helplessly from below. And so begins Orca, the tale of that whale’s attempt to avenge the death of his mate and calf.
Released two years after Jaws, Orca has garnered comparisons with Steven Spielberg’s sea-faring masterpiece. While warranted on the basis that each movie centers around a large sea animal wreaking havoc on a small town, Orca is more akin to a reversal of Moby Dick with the whale vowing revenge, not Captain Ahab.
This is one of the more unusual natural horror films because the actual villain isn’t the animal. The script takes the time to explain why killer whales are on a different level when compared to sharks. Thanks to an expository scene where Rachel addresses a group of students, the viewer gets a crash course in what sets cetaceans apart from fish. And while some of the concepts have since been disproven, orcas really do have giant brains and their own complex social structure and we still don’t know if they’re smarter than humans. If there’s one area where Orca succeeds, it’s making one feel pity for the whale. (Ennio Morricone’s haunting musical score plays a large part in driving that emotional response.)
Orca also features decent special effects for the time, including some fairly convincing miniatures and artificial killer whales. (Most of the whale sequences used trained killer whales — who can be identified by their collapsed dorsal fin, a common occurrence for whales in captivity — but animatronic and rubber whales are used for the more gruesome scenes.)
Where Orca ultimately fails isn’t being too similar to Jaws. It’s just not a satisfying adventure or horror movie. The whale does claim some human victims and causes quite a bit of damage to the infrastructure of a fishing village but there’s never a real sense of danger or many thrills. Only one scene — involving a young Bo Derek (in her first theatrical role) — manages to elicit any suspense.
Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling do what they can with the somewhat ropey dialogue. Will Sampson (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest) and Robert Carradine (Revenge of the Nerds) tag along and provide fresh meat for the whale.
For what some have discounted as just another Jaws rip-off, Orca provides enough originality to be worth watching for genre fans. However, it fails to be a rousing adventure movie nor is it an edge-of-your-seat thriller.
2.5 out of 5.0 stars
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