Film Review: Orca (1977)

Inspired by the enormous success of Jaws, Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis launched three big‑budget films with a similar premise. First was King Kong about a giant ape terrorising New York. Second was The White Buffalo about a giant herbivore terrorising the Old West. The third was Orca, directed in 1977 by Michael Anderson, the closest in concept to the original thanks to a plot about a large marine animal terrorising a coastal community.

The great white shark, the formidable antagonist of Jaws, is not without its natural enemies, and it becomes apparent in the opening scenes of this film when one shark is easily defeated by a killer whale. The incident is witnessed by Nolan (played by Richard Harris), a fishing‑boat captain, who is so impressed that he decides to hunt a killer whale in order to sell it to an aquarium for a hefty sum. Despite warnings from marine biologist Rachel Bedford (played by Charlotte Rampling) he goes out to sea, but his plan goes terribly wrong when he accidentally kills a female killer whale and her unborn calf. The orca’s mate, which witnessed the incident, remembers Nolan and is determined to take revenge. He begins stalking Nolan’s boat and later attacks and damages ships in the fishing village where Nolan has put into port. Nolan is at first reluctant, but the villagers finally force him to sail out to sea again, where he will finally confront the giant animal.

Scriptwriter Sergio Donati strayed from the Jaws template not only by taking more inspiration from Melville’s Moby‑Dick, but also through the interesting idea of switching perspective. In Orca the animal is the real protagonist, and humans are the villains that penetrate the animal’s home and kill his loved ones. That is an interesting concept, although not fully realised. From a technical perspective, Orca is a solid film thanks to clever use of Newfoundland locations, real‑life killer whales and more‑than‑passable animatronics effects. Harris is relatively good in his anti‑hero role, in which he effectively displays arrogance, remorse, fear and, finally, quiet reconciliation with his fate. This can’t be said for Rampling, whose character also serves as the film’s voice‑over narrator (thus telegraphing the film’s ending) and as a marine‑biology teacher for the audience in an exposition scene that describes killer whales, their intelligence, social customs and vengefulness in a way that makes them both similar and superior to humans. Rampling, one of the most beautiful actresses ever to appear on screen, doesn’t do much acting, and in the otherwise interesting and visually impressive scene of the final showdown on the ice looks more like a supermodel on a fashion shoot than a woman fighting for her life. Her acting skills look inferior even to Bo Derek in her first screen role, best remembered for the scene in which her character loses a leg. Will Sampson is, on the other hand, tragically wasted in the role of an Inuit spiritual advisor that was supposed to give some sort of New‑Age dimension to the plot. Bad acting is accompanied by an sometimes‑annoying musical score by Ennio Morricone that adds a sort of melodramatic campiness that would give Orca an almost parodic quality; many sensitive viewers, on the other hand, might be disturbed by graphic scenes of violence. Orca also suffers from somewhat bad editing, resulting in a confusing and anti‑cathartic ending, but it mercifully stays within an hour‑and‑a‑half format, making its many shortcomings less visible and easier to forget than in some truly bad films.

RATING: 3/10 (+)

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