Movies - Orca

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	Movies - Orca

Orca is a 1977 horror film directed by Michael Anderson and produced by Dino De Laurentiis and starring Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling. The film was one of a long line of marine-related horror-disaster films that followed the success of 1975's Jaws
. In this film, the antagonist is an Orca "killer" whale.

Taglines:

The killer whale is one of the most intelligent creatures in the universe. Incredibly, he is the only animal other than man who kills for revenge. He has one mate, and if she is harmed by man, he will hunt down that person with a relentless, terrible vengeance - across seas, across time, across all obstacles.
Terror just beneath the surface.

Plot

Nolan (Richard Harris) is a crusty sea captain who is offered a large payment by a local aquarium if he can capture a killer whale. He and his crew capture a killer whale, which he strings up vertically aboard his ship on the way back to port. Unfortunately, the whale dies on its way back to port. The whale happens to be pregnant and its mate seeks vengeance for her death, killing one of Nolan's shipmates. The situation deteriorates as Nolan and the whale fight a deadly battle. A local professor, Rachel Bedford (Charlotte Rampling), tries to bring Nolan to his senses before everything goes awry.

Production

Like Jaws two years earlier, filming scenes with real whales seemed impractical, so Anderson used a combination of stock footage and animatronics to portray the killer whale. The stock was taken at Marine World in Redwood City, California, and the animatronic whale was filmed off of Malta (the film was an Italian production) and Newfoundland in the small fishing community of Petty Harbour.

Reception

Orca was poorly received by critics who panned the film as a Jaws "rip-off" (which in many ways, it was), and for its poorly conceived special effects work. Many scientists also panned the film for many of the same reasons they criticized Jaws. Scientifically, the film was very flawed, as whales, even orcas, very rarely attack humans. The film was also criticized for a gory sequence in which a whale in its death throes aborts a fetus. When released in July 1977, the film found only minor success, but over the course of thirty years has achieved a cult following among fans of the eco-horror sub genre. It's often seen as superior to Jaws: The Revenge
, another film about personal revenge against a vicious sea creature.

Despite being gruesome in parts, the film also contains what may be considered beautiful imagery, accompanied by the haunting score by Ennio Morricone. Some may also consider it to be a more humanely complex movie than Jaws in terms of moral issues and character portrayal.

Trivia

There are many comparisons between Orca and the Jaws series. Orca was the name of Quint's ship in Jaws and was found wrecked in Jaws 2
. Orca contained a scene where the killer whale mauled a great white shark to death; in response, Jaws 2 contained a scene where an orca was found dead on the beach, possibly by a shark attack.

Cast

Richard Harris
as Captain Nolan
Charlotte Rampling
as Rachel Bedford
Will Sampson
as Umilak
Bo Derek
as Annie
Keenan Wynn
as Novak
Robert Carradine
as Ken

Orca Orca Orca

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