The changing tide of shark horror: Sous La Seine (2024) and the ending we deserve’

In June 2024, Sous La Seine [Under Paris] was released on Netflix immediately securing a significant viewership. According to the director, it was intended to be a tribute to Stephen Spielberg’s Jaws (1975). Taking place during the Paris 2024 Olympics and featuring a scene in which triathletes are eaten by a giant shark in the Seine, the film was released a month before the actual sporting event opened. This decision foregrounded the film’s satirical and excessive quality, lambasting the social and environmental violence that underpins modernity. Its intertextuality with Jaws plays with conventions to highlight the political, environmental and social that frame our understanding of the shark, and the natural world.