‘Jaws’ Deleted Scene Was A Gory Sight Of A Child Being Eaten

Steven Speilberg’s 1975 release of Jaws introduced the franchise’s fans to a terrifying world of killer great white sharks, as the renowned filmmaker collaborated with Roy Schneider, Richard Dreyfuss, and Robert Shaw to portray the high sea adventure film in the most nerve-wracking way.

Interestingly, one of the most memorable scenes from the show saw a little getting snatched up by the sea creature, causing his mother to place a $3,000 bounty on the shark. Although the scene simply showed the youngster named Alex Kitner getting eaten up by the killer white off his floating raft, it was much gorier than people saw.

The gory ‘Jaws’ scene that got deleted

Unknown to most, the original scene was much more disturbing and graphic, showing the great white shredding Kitner to pieces. A black and white photo from that part of the movie made rounds on social media, showing the creature about to clamp his jaws down on Kitner, who lay on the floating raft.

The photo depicted a simple but better-imagined scenario of what really happened, leaving fans to wonder how exactly it played out rather than show them. Speilberg also removed the full depiction of the moment because he wanted to hide the shark’s full appearance until later in the movie.

Footage of the original scene has since been lost to time

Although there is no footage of the original scene available, behind-the-scenes snippets were shown in the film’s 40th anniversary Blu-ray, in the documentary titled The Shark Is Still Working. As a PG-rated movie at the time, most kill scenes on Jaws remained bloodless, but the suspenseful nature made it even more shocking.

Also, showing Kitner’s gruesome death would have completely changed the movie’s rating and reduced the range of viewers, which was not Speilberg’s intention. Five decades later, Jaws is back with Dreyfuss reappearing in the sequel titled Into The Deep, which sees a group of divers searching for treasure at the bottom of the sea.