Actors Richard Dreyfuss (L) and Robert Shaw need a bigger boat. (Photo by Universal Pictures/Courtesy of Getty Images)

When I was in college, I took a class on the gothic novel. We started with what’s generally recognized as the first gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s “The Castle of Otranto,” and we worked our way up to Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange.” It was a disturbing semester.

One of the last novels we read was Vladimir Nabokov’s “Bend Sinister,” in which professor and philosopher Adam Krug runs afoul of his government. His son, David, is sent to the Institute for Abnormal Children and killed in an event that happens largely outside the bounds of the page. Part of our class discussion centered on how leaving it up to our imaginations made the scene more horrifying. What was going on in our heads was probably more disturbing to each of us than what Nabokov might have written on the page.

This off-screen terror is usually part of the best horror movies. Take “Jaws” as an example. Because of persistent problems with the film’s mechanical sharks during filming, we don’t see much of the great white that’s terrorizing Amity Island. Anticipating something bad happening — and imagining what that something will be — is a lot scarier than seeing a relatively fakey shark chomp down on some stuntmen. The movie that frightened me more than anything I’ve ever watched (Juan Antonio Bayona’s “The Orphanage,” for those of you keeping score at home) uses the same technique, relying on anticipation and imagination to make everything scary.

In spite of its masterful scariness, I don’t think “The Orphanage” has fostered a widespread fear of orphans. I can’t say the same about “Jaws,” though. Its impact on people’s perception of sharks has been so profound that Peter Benchley, author of the novel “Jaws,” said that if he tried to write the same novel today, it would be a vastly different book — Jaws would have been the victim.

With that in mind, I wonder whether bringing sharks out of the shadowy world of off-screen imagination might help change people’s perceptions of them in the long run — even though what you see on screen can be pretty gory. Seeing real great whites on the hunt is never as scary to me as waiting for Jaws to take a bite out of an unwary swimmer. This year’s Shark Week — which starts on Aug. 2 on Discovery Channel and runs until the 8th — is also adding a focus on shark conservation to its usual blood-and-tooth fare. Discovery is teaming up with Sen. John Kerry to encourage shark protection and cut down on illegal shark finning.

What do you think — does putting sharks into the limelight help them? And has the scariest movie you’ve ever seen affected the way you view the real world?

More on sharks and Shark Week at HowStuffWorks.com:
How Shark Week Works
How many sharks are killed recreationally each year — and why?
How are shark pups born?