On Saturday, a Brisbane woman was savagely mauled by up to three sharks while swimming at Amity Point off North Stradbroke Island.

Film buffs were quick to note the name – and shiver. The spot shares its name with the small-town coastal setting for Jaws (1975), not to mention Jaws: The Revenge (1987): Amity Island.

But Australia’s Amity was named a long time before Spielberg’s
fibreglass great white started terrorising cinema goers. In fact, Amity Point
has been around since 1825 when a convict outstation was first settled there.

And the Amity footage in Jaws was actually filmed at Martha’s Vineyard, an
island off the
coast of Massachusetts.

Even so, town planners might be wise to stay away from the Amity
moniker in future. For a name that means friendly, it certainly seems
to
lure unfriendly residents. Amityville, New York, was where Ronald DeFeo
Junior murdered his family – the grisly inspiration for a novel, a
1979 film and last year’s The Amityville Horror.

It’s said that Jaws‘Amity Island took its name from Amityville.