Orca (1977) Revisited: The Killer Whale Horror You Thought Was a Fish Tale—Ready to Chill Your Aquarian Soul?
Added on June 26, 2025 inEntertainment News Cards, Movie News Cards
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So, here we are, celebrating the 50th anniversary of Jaws—that iconic summer blockbuster which not only turned beaches into battlegrounds but also left us all humming its unforgettable music. But hey, have you ever wondered what happened when Hollywood tried to cash in on the great white’s legacy with its own twist of aquatic terror? Enter Orca, the lesser-known but wildly intriguing rip-off that swims circles around your expectations. Now, with the Moon stirring up deep emotions today, perhaps it’s fitting to revisit a movie where vengeance isn’t just personal—it’s downright killer whale personal. Imagine a furious orca on a cosmic vendetta; it’s not just shark week, it’s shark revenge week, and this flick turns the tables on the classic monster mash with a slippery blend of intelligence and righteous fury. Ready to dive into a tale where the ocean’s most clever predator gets a slasher-movie makeover? Buckle up, because Orca isn’t just a Jaws clone—it bites back. LEARN MORE
Happy 50th anniversary Jaws. You are undoubtedly one of not only the greatest summer blockbusters of all time but a landmark horror film that lives on in both its quotable lines and music that nearly everyone will know when heard but also its legacy. While we have covered the series nearly to death in almost every fashion possible, I don’t think we have looked at what it did for the movie world as much as we could. While there are knockoffs that try to directly capitalize on the very name that built the foundation, looking at you Cruel Jaws/Jaws 5, there are so many wonderful copycats that were produced that live on in their own special ways. My plan is to cover a few of them over the next couple months and while there are many to discuss either on the merits of so bad they are good or genuine uniqueness, I have a few in mind that I think deserve a spotlight for being way better than they have any right to be. Orca has way more going for it than you’d expect from a movie made just two years after Jaws that was made to directly capitalize off the success but here we are in this very video. Let’s look at why Orca is a top tier clone movie and one of the best animal attack flicks ever put to celluloid.
Imagine you are Italian screenwriter Lucino Vincenzoni. You are already an absolute legend for writing For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly for Sergio Leone and you are woken up in the middle of the night by mega producer Dino De Laurentiis. He has just seen Jaws on the big screen and wants you to come up with “a fish that is tougher and more terrible than a great white.” His brother directed him to killer whales as Luciano was already a big fan of sea life and he found the novel Orca, written by Arthur Herzog, and decided to adapt it into a movie that was designed to rival and better Jaws. Since Jaws was also adapted from a book for its big screen debut, this was kismet and the script was written. Since it was going to be an international affair, an uncredited script doctor for dialogue was brought in with Robert Towne working on the dialogue. Towne worked with Jack Nicholson, Roger Corman, and Sydney Pollack among others and definitely adds a little flair to Orca.
Helping Vincenzoni with the script would be Sergio Donati who would be responsible for Once Upon a Time in The West and Duck You Sucker which is kind of the forgotten spaghetti western of its time. The pedigree for Orca is already way more surprising than you’d expect but we then come to who would direct the project. Making it a full international picture, Oscar nominated English director Michael Anderson was hired following his work on Logan’s Run and Around the World in 80 Days. The cast is a fun one with the two leads being played by original flavor Dumbledore himself Richard Harris who almost died multiple times doing his own stunts and Charlotte Rampling. Harris never did any other movies even related to the horror genre but worked with Sam Peckinpah in Major Dundee, Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven, and was nominated for 2 Oscars. Rampling, an Oscar nominated actress in her own right, has had a heck of a career which is still going strong into 2025. She has appeared in other horror films like Asylum from Robert Bloch and Amicus Pictures as well as Angel Heart among her many genres and accolades.
The rest of the cast includes Will Sampson of Poltergeist II and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest fame and Bo Derek of 10. Robert Carradine, Keenan Wynn, and Peter Hooten who, if nothing else, you need to check out in Night Killer which is one of the most insane Italian horror flicks I’ve ever seen. In terms of copying Jaws, you have stand ins for Hooper and Quint although a Brody surrogate is missing. It does, however, follow a storyline that Jaws: The Revenge would use years later with the main oceanic terror seemingly targeting the human characters. Orca follows Nolan, an Irish fisherman who does odd jobs to pay the mortgage on his boat so he can return to the home country, as he hunts for a great white shark for an aquarium. The movie removes all notions of subtlety right away as the music is “we have John Williams at home” in its attempt to show a shark early. It also tries to prove that its animal is the real terror when an Orca kills a great white shark when it attacks one of Nolan’s crew.
Nolan sees this as an opportunity to go after a more valuable target in the Orca but instead of getting just a prize animal, he hooks a pregnant female which results in the death of both mother and child. It’s here where Orca transforms into something entirely different. While a lot of Jaws clones focused on environmental issues like the wonderful mega bear attack film Prophecy, Orca goes in a direction that is both hilariously unexpected and a bit ahead of its time. You see, when the male Orca watches its mate and child die on a boat at the hands of Nolan and its crew, it turns into seafaring whale John Wick or the Bride from Kill Bill. It is consumed with rage and revenge while also being hyper intelligent, something that the movie sets up well with a character introducing the species in general.
The Jaws similarities extend further than just the basic outline too. While the movie’s music attempts a Jaws lite motif, music provided by none other than Ennio Morricone for the record, it also has little flourishes like the Orca’s fin coming out of the water to identify itself and even some of the characters being stand ins for those in Jaws. This of course has just as much to do with the original author as the movie’s writers but is still fun to note. Nolan is very much in the Quint role and even has a deeply saddening story to go with him. For Quint, it was the sinking of the USS Indianapolis where many of his fellow soldiers were taken by sharks before rescue. Nolan on the other hand is mortified to learn that he has inflicted the same pain on the Orca that someone gave him with his wife and child also perishing in an act of senseless violence. Richard Dryfuss’s Hooper is slightly recreated with the “Expert” character but in Orca it’s a Native American who understands the species and how to combat it based on his ancestors. A different type of expert to be sure but an expert nonetheless.
Further looking into the similarities, we find the local town wanting the menace dealt with. In Jaws we have the shady mayor of the town wanting to keep the beaches open and the tourists happy so that money will be spent and the town will continue to elect him to his office. Orca has the local fishermen being worried about an Orca messing with the very ecosystem they use for their livelihood. The Orca being out for revenge is one unique aspect but then the film takes another turn. We are treated to slasher villain Orca for most of the remainder of the movie. Not only does the Orca get his own slasher type music, but he stares down Nolan multiple times in a similar fashion that Michael Myers would be standing outside Laurie Strode’s window in between the family laundry.
This whale is seemingly an unstoppable killer, and we get proof of that as it stalks its prey one body at a time. The first victim of the whale rampage is the first mate Novak played by Keenan Wynn. He is an older sailor but is dragged under the water by the Orca without remorse. The Orca then tries to turn the entire village against Nolan by rupturing an oil line and causing an explosion big enough to end their fuel supply while also sinking several of their boats to cost them potential weeks of fishing. While Nolan understands the plight and anger of the Orca and agrees to not kill the creature, Orca will not be stopped and nearly destroys his home while also taking the entire leg of Annie, played by Bo Derek, who is a crew member on Nolan’s ship. This is insult to injury for Annie as her leg is already in a cast at this point. Nolan then decides the gloves are off and this whale must be stopped.
The movie has a mean streak that lasts for nearly the entire run time and while the special effects shift from good to bad and back pretty regularly, you never really expect what’s to come next. The crew stalk the whale into The Straight of Belle Isle where it takes out the crew in order. The Orca eats Ken when he leans over the side of the ship, Paul when he tries to take the safety raft to escape and is crushed, and even Jacob is crushed when Orca breaks the side of an iceberg, and it crushes him. We are down to just Nolan and Bedford when Nolan shoots the Orca with a harpoon gun but is then thrown against the ice to his death on the back of the killers’ tail. What’s left for our antagonist, or I suppose our hero depending on how you look at it? The whale drowns itself after getting its revenge. That’s it. That’s the end of the movie. I did not have that on my bingo card.
The movie did make 14 million on its 6-million-dollar budget, but De Laurentiis was certain that it was going to outgross Jaws while it would only amount to a minor hit and a forgotten gem in the long run. He loudly said, “Why nobody like my whale!!?” Well, I do Mr. Laurentiis, I do. It’s a fun and unexpectedly dark journey that is nearly impossible to tell what’s going to happen. You have a slasher killer whale and genuinely feel bad for the whale family from beginning to end. While there are nearly countless Jaws clones out there to choose from, Orca belongs on the top of the pile. While it never quite matches its over the top and great-looking poster, it will give you a good time and is honestly better than parts of the official sequels. Grab your harpoon gun and hunt down Orca yourself.
A couple of the previous episodes of The Black Sheep can be seen at the bottom of this article. To see more, head over to the JoBlo Horror Originals YouTube channel – and subscribe while you’re there!
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