If you loved the movie Free Willy Growing up, well this is the movie if Willy went on a murderous rampage! I love this movie. Overall it isn't as strong a film or made with quite as much technical finesse as Jaws, but one thing I think it does have over it is a much deeper emotional resonance, plus the creature is fundamentally different, being an intelligent orca that's attacking to gain an arguably justified revenge, whereas Jaws was more like a deadly force of nature with no intelligence and that killed indiscriminately - unless you count Jaws 4! And whether or not it was originally made as a knock-off, it's earned its own respectable distinction and staying power over the years because of the quality of the acting, the cinematography, the score, and just how it plain has a lot more weight and worth to it than your average animal attack story, and for me it definitely is an unsung classic. It's basically a revenge story, where a killer whale just happens to be the one that's getting revenge. And as out there as that possibly sounds, they really made the premise work tremendously well, and even thought of very binding and logical reasons why the people don't just stay out of the ocean! I really like Richard Harris' performance in it because he isn't just an arrogant sea captain who's ruthlessly hunting for sport, but a compassionate man who immediately realises he's made a terrible mistake as soon as he fires the fateful harpoon, and yearns to make amends one way of another, and it was clever how Captain Nolan and the orca do share a common pain and a need for revenge and vindication and are a kind of reflection of each other, despite one being an animal and the other a man. Some of the moments in this film do genuinely give me the creeps, like the closeups of the whale's eye and its roar as it leaps out of the sea to snatch the unwary and drag them to a watery grave, and the eerie surrealness of when the whale foetus falls out of the dying mother always sends a chill up my spine. That whole sequence is still shocking and unpleasant to watch to this day, it's brutal. It isn't really a horror movie as such though, the orca isn't killing out of malice, he's maddened with grief and is killing everyone around Nolan as a way of showing him that until he surrenders his own life the nightmare won't end. And at the bitter end when Nolan finally has been killed and the orca swims away under the desolate arctic ice, if in a form of self-exile or an act of suicide because the one thing he had left to live for, his revenge, is now complete and he truly has nothing left, is probably open to interpretation. I think his last look at the woman before he departs means that he's saying something like "Now you know how it feels to lose your family." It's certainly a sad ending, the poor creature looks like the most alone being on the face of the earth, and it makes the movie feel more like a tragedy for all involved really, neither man nor beast deserved to die, it was all just an awful chain of events... And the music is so deeply saddening that it makes me want to cry every time. Since the very first time I ever saw this film as a kid the first thing that always pops into my head when I'm reminded of it is the hauntingly beautiful "We are One" theme. Great movie, one of the best and most underrated gems of the very varied nature strikes back genre. "My heart beats her waves at the shore of the world and writes upon it her signature in tears with the words..."I love thee."

This was WAY better than I was expecting and much better than it had any right to be. Rather than just another crazed animal kills people movie, it was more mythic in its scope, almost like moby Dick in the way it portrayed man vs whale. It had excellent use of stock footage and trained animals and hid the puppets away with such short shots that it worked quite well. While there were some hokey parts, overall it was a nice, more thoughtful change of pace from the usual blood in the water movies.

The wake of "Jaws" (1975), Producer Dino De Lautentiis bought in option off from an Italian writers duo and had it in rumors polished by Robert Towne to realize a movie on a mammal going rough against its aggressors. "Orca" the killer whale, who takes the hopelessly isolated character of Captain Nolan, performed by a distressed Richard Harris in his prime, who had been unable to receive love by a classy performing Charlotte Rampling as the character of Rachel Bedford.The film, released in Summer 1977, when "Star Wars" had already been part of movie history, was neglected due to its shear brutal force of nature against its leading character. Killing the offspring with carrying mother in a fish hunting venture plunged in debt by Cpt. Nolan, the name-given whale is out for vengeance, making no stops against its nemesis.The uncompromising dark subject matter of "Orca" lets the film become for a majority of spectators be uncomfortably. The spoiled audience of season 1976/1977 with a dream-state "Rocky" (1976) picture and society-exposing "Annie Hall" (1977) directed by Woody Allen at the peak of box office as well as critic's billboards, puts the picture directed by Michael Anderson still in a niche for cineasts."Orca" has not much splendor nor glow about it. Nevertheless the carefully created fate of its leading character Cpt. Nolan encountering the love of his life impersonated in the character of Rachel on a stony beach with cloudy skies on Newfoundland, Canada brings the 90-minute-movie to a heart-breaking state.Where Director Steven Spielberg lifted all his youth-striking skill, borrowed from Masters as Alfred Hitchcock to create a story-driven thrill-ride for "Jaws" (1975), "Orca" stays on calmer coves with an exceptional sound design by John Bramall and a haunting score by Ennio Morricone.The picture may not be the most polished one in its writings or directions, but "Orca" creates its horrors rather on-screen than the hours after the curtains comes down, when a specter realizes that the human existence can only be fulfilled through shared love to another human being or the full contact battle with nature itself.© Felix Alexander Dausend (for Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

After JAWS (1975) started taking off, producer Dino Di Laurentiis got on the phone with Italian writer Luciano Vincenzoni (of THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY fame) and had him begin work on a similar script that could outdo Spielberg's film. His only specificity was that the film contain a sea beast "tougher and more terrible" than the great white shark. Yes, that's the genesis of the particular film; whether you want to call it a "rip-off" or just "inspired by..." is up to you. Upon release in 1977, it was poorly received, with mediocre box office and scathing reviews from most critics. Was all that deserved? Actually, yep! But this isn't a bad movie because it was made in response to another film's success, it's a bad movie because it's poorly acted and directed and *horribly* written. I don't mind films being a little far-fetched, but there's a big difference between being far-fetched and downright preposterous. ORCA is not only impossible to take seriously, but tries to have it both ways by running down a checklist of killer whales 'facts' before disregarding the scientific research it supposedly hinges its own story on. In addition to that, the pacing seems off, the characters aren't the least bit likable and the dialogue is unintentionally laughable ("Y- you revengeful son of a bitch!") throughout.Things actually begin very promisingly, with elegant shots of whales peacefully swimming and jumping all set to a truly beautiful and moving score composed by Ennio Morricone. We then meet Captain Nolan (Richard Harris) and his small crew, who are at a fishing village in Newfoundland with one goal in mind: capturing a killer whale and transporting it to a Sea World-like aquarium. If they are able to do so, they'll receive hundreds of thousands of dollars and, well, Nolan has a mortgaged boat to pay off. They meet zoology professor and whale researcher Dr. Rachel Bedford (Charlotte Rampling) and her assistant Ken (Robert Carradine) and even bear witness to Ken being saved from a great white shark BY a killer whale (sort of a jab at Spielberg's film in a way), but it does nothing to deter Nolan and crew from their mission.Aiming for a male orca, Nolan ends up accidentally harpooning a female, who then promptly attempts suicide (!) by ramming herself into the boat's propeller. They hoist her up and soon realize she's with child when one splatters out onto the deck. Nolan disposes of both the baby and the mama into the ocean and the irate male orca sets out for revenge, starting with leaping out of the water and chomping down on deckhand Keenan Wynn. Up until this point, I was actually enjoying this movie and feeling sympathetic toward the whale's situation, but that didn't last long as this rapidly starts going right downhill. The whale sinks all of the boats in the harbor except for Nolan's because apparently it wants HIM to be able to come out to sea to fight it, somehow knows that knocking a few pipes loose will blow up some fuel tanks (and nearly half the marina along with it) and then bumps a house on stilts down so it can bite off crew girl Bo Derek's leg, which is followed by a hilarious crunch sound similar to that of someone biting into a potato chip. After each attack, the whale is shown shrieking or leaping from the water in a perfect arc as if it's doing some theme park act. The finale has Captain Ahab, er Nolan, and company letting the whale lure their boat out to some remote Arctic location (ludicrously by waving its fin to direct them along) and picking them off one by one since they continue to lean over the railing and hang from rope dangling over the water like idiots.Harris and Rampling are good actors, but they're saddled with such poorly-scripted characters neither is able to do much to save this film. Peter Hooten, playing Nolan's right-hand man, seems to have been dubbed by someone else in post and comes off horribly as a result. Derek - in her film debut - proves here why she was only suitable for getting naked in her narcissistic then-husband's Razzie-winning soft-core porn flicks in the 80s. Most embarrassing of all is Will Sampson as the horribly-stereotyped wise Indian who materializes out of thin air insisting on going along on the final fateful voyage. This character contributes absolutely nothing at all to the film and is apparently there simply because any movie dealing with Mother Nature's wrath must include a wise Indian to tell everyone what they're up against. Only this time they forgot to have the Indian do or say anything that had any bearing whatsoever on the plot.There are numerous other moronic scenes in here, my favorite being when Nolan goes to ask a priest whether or not it's a sin to kill an animal (?!) During another scene toward the end, the Captain angrily throws down his gun and goes into some rant about how he wants to have "a fair fight on equal terms" with the whale. The very next scene he is shown flinging a harpoon and shooting his rifle at the animal. And I doubt I will be the only person who laughs when the whale nudges an iceberg with its nose a few times, breaks off a huge chunk and then starts PUSHING it toward the ship!The best attributes here are clearly the aforementioned Morricone score and the cinematography. The whale effects are also reasonably effective, using close-ups of real killer whales (obviously filmed somewhere in a tank) and scale model whales, which are fairly well-designed... aside from a dead one on the beach that actually sways back and forth when the wind blows. Shame about the rest of the movie.