Open Water Year: 2003 Director: Chris Kentis Written by: Chris Kentis Threat: Sharks Weapon of Choice: Teeth Based Upon: a true story? IMDb page:

Other movies in this series:
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Rish's Reviews
Red Water, Dark Water, Open Water, Deep Waters, Black Water, Truck Stop Men's Room Urinal Water . . . there's a lot of flicks out there with names like this one. This is pretty memorable, though.
So, the story goes: a young, overworked couple take a much-needed island vacation, and go scuba diving one morning, only to be abandoned in the middle of the ocean due to a error by the boat that took them there. What can they do to get back? How will they survive? Will this bring them closer together or tear them apart? And, hey, what's that dark shape swimming in the water nearby?
Open Water is one of those interesting flicks that has no stars, and has to earn its audience by word-of-mouth, and a good marketing campaign and/or a good gimmick. The gimmick in this case was: They Used Real Sharks.
Having seen a lot of student films in school, the opening minutes of this one tried my patience. Made with a $130,000 budget, and shot on weekends for over two years, the film was shot on digital video, with a lot of handheld stuff, extreme closeups, and odd angles. Fortunately, once the point of the movie arrives, that stuff either goes away or becomes unnoticeable. It's odd, the elements shot on land looked so very cheap, but the ocean stuff looked like a million bucks.
Apparently based on real events (though there's no way you could really know all that, is there?), and starring two unknowns, Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis, it was easy to see these as real people rather than actors, even though Ryan is a gorgeous woman. With good acting and good dialogue, the bickering and marital friction also felt realistic to me. Once the shark hits the fan, it becomes a game of whose fault is all is, which is probably what would really happen.
In the same vein as--"Damn you, Steven Spielberg!"--Jaws, the flick reminds us that sharks are astoundingly scary. When the bastards surface all of a sudden--wow, that is a shock. And the fact that they are undeniably real makes the threat all the more tense and plausable. No lazy and instantly-dated CG shots here, folks.
Except for a film set in space, this has the most secluded location of any Secluded Location ever. It's a colourful, beautiful locale (of course), but wow, the ocean can be so very vast and daunting. It's easy to be reminded of how small we as humans truly are. I can't decide whether the Weapon of Choice is Sharks or The Ocean. It could be that the Ocean is the Threat and sharks are the Weapon. Hmmm.
Oh, and jellyfish are evil. Finding Nemo taught us that.
I really enjoyed Open Water, though that might not have been the filmmakers' intent. This is precisely the kind of film the generation that grew up with "Power Rangers," "Pokemon," and Mortal Kombat will find absolutely boring, but screw those guys. I found it riveting.
Line to Remember: "It wasn't a shark, was it?"
"God, no, honey. If it was a shark, your leg would be gone."
I'd Recommend It To: I was very impressed (dear Shabiba, I've been in Los Angeles too long; I nearly said "hella impressed," a phrase Charlton Heston could pry out of my cold, dead hands), and you might be too. If you were born before 1980, that is.
Posted: September 12, 2005

Total Skulls: 6

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?