AND YOU THOUGHT watching “Jaws” in your living room or neighborhood movie theater was scary.
Try watching the killer shark classic from water leading to the Atlantic Ocean.
On Friday the 13th next month, a hearty bunch of souls will gather in the waters of Jupiter Sound in the Indian River to watch Steven Spielberg’s 1975 classic about a large great white shark that preys on a beach town.
From fishing boats, paddleboards and innertubes, they’ll watch “Jaws” on a 45-foot screen erected on the beach behind Jupiter Pointe Club & Marina in Tequesta, 2.5 miles north of the Jupiter Inlet.
You’re invited, too.
Hosted by the marina in partnership with Futures Recovery Healthcare, the boat-in movie theater, as it’s called, returns Sept. 13 from 7-10 p.m. to raise money for Jupiter Recovery Day, an annual event honoring and celebrating recovery from mental health and substance abuse disorders.
For tickets and details, click this link.
Proceeds will be donated to 211 Palm Beach and Treasure Coast, a nonprofit offering access to crisis counseling, hotlines for suicide prevention and disaster distress and other health and human services information.
Tickets are $10 to watch from the grass or beach around the marina and from a kayak or paddleboard, $20 per boat and $30 for VIP dock seating.
While some moviegoers may feel they’re “going to need a bigger boat,’’ as Capt. Brody memorably says in the film, the experience of watching “Jaws” on a kayak, paddleboard or floatable with your feet dangling in the water adds another level of suspense, especially in those scenes with the movie’s ominous music theme — dun-dun, dun-dun, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun…
“That's what people find so amusing about it — they want to be scared. They wanna feel alive, and I do think that is connected to recovery,’’ said Laura Kunz, who founded the boat-in event in 2020 as a safe way to bring the community together during the pandemic.
“Jaws” was shown at that first event and drew about 1,500 people.
“The feedback was so awesome,’’ she said. “This dad came up to me after and said, ‘That is a moment as a father I will never forget — being in the water at night with my little girls watching ‘Jaws.’’’
Two other boat-in theaters featured “Elf” in December 2020 and “Star Wars’’ in 2021. In recent years, Kunz said she kept hearing from people who wanted an encore of “Jaws,’’ adapted from the Peter Benchley best-seller released 50 years ago this summer.
Kunz, Futures Recovery Healthcare’s director of external relations, said she found inspiration for the boat-in theater when she saw a photograph of a floating movie theater in Paris during the pandemic.
“It clicked because I happen to know people at Jupiter Pointe Club and Marina and I knew they would love this,’’ she said. “I said, ‘What about this crazy idea?’ They were like, ‘we’re in!’’’
Plus, even though the movie was filmed in Martha’s Vineyard, “Jaws” has a solid Palm Beach County connection: 1964 Forest Hill High School graduate Susan Backlinie, who died earlier this year, played the skinny-dipping swimmer killed in the movie’s memorable opening scene.
“We had so much fun,’’ Angela Bustamante, a Futures Recovery clinical director, said of the 2020 event she attended on a small boat with her two young sons.
“‘Jaws’ is like one of my childhood movies. It made it so much more enjoyable, maybe kind of mysterious, being in the water and watching it,’’ she said.
“It was a really amazing community event. When they told me they were going to do it again, I was like, ‘I’m in!’’’
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About the author
Joe Capozzi is an award-winning reporter based in Lake Worth Beach. He spent more than 30 years writing for newspapers, mostly at The Palm Beach Post, where he wrote about the opioid scourge, invasive pythons, the birth of the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches and Palm Beach County government. For 15 years, he covered the Miami Marlins baseball team. Joe left The Post in December 2020. View all posts by Joe Capozzi.
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