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Dawn Keetley weighs in on the anniversary of 'Jaws,' a movie that scared us senseless.

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Chief Brody (Roy Scheider) battles a (mechanical) great white shark in the climatic moments of "Jaws," a movie that still strikes fear in summer revelers everywhere.

"Jaws" turns 50 on June 20. The anniversary will be marked with TV airings of the film and its sequels as well as a big screen re-release. Watch it once or hundreds of times and the scare seems fresh every time, said Dawn Keetley, editor of the journal Horror Studies and professor of English and film. "Sharks stand in perfectly for wild nature that’s at the edge of where humans can go, and as humans, we always push at the border," she told USA Today. "Sharks mark where we can’t go very easily, maybe where we shouldn’t go. To the dangerous and the forbidden."

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