Jaws famously works partially due to how little you see the shark, buffalo live on land and cant freely hide beneath it.

The original intention was that we’d see the shark a whole bunch; they built a complicated animatronic shark rig to feature heavily in the scenes. Problem was, mixing all those mechanical parts, hydraulics, and electronics with salt water resulted in an animatronic shark that broke down constantly. So they switched to having the shark only in fleeting moments as a matter of necessity.