Review of Open Water (2004) by David W — 25 Jul 2016

Open Water is the terrifying and intense true story of a young couple who are mistakenly left behind during a scuba dive excursion and must face the reality that they are all alone in the middle of the ocean with no rescue in sight.

For what it lacks in star-power and production values, it more than makes up for with nail-biting tension that puts you in the shoes of these two unfortunate people when you realize just how terrifying the ocean actually is.

The film is shot with HD cameras to give it a hyper-realistic feel which puts you right there with them and horrifies the audience every now and then when the camera dips below the surface and shows us what is swimming around them.

One amazing thing about this film is that no CGI was used and thus the sharks, jellyfish, etc were all real and the actors had to overcome their fears and swim amongst them. This film is the true definition of a HORROR film as the situation these people find themselves in is the absolute last thing I would ever want to experience and the filmmakers do a great job keeping the tension taut throughout.

It proves that imagination is far-scarier than big-budget effects and this is easily the scariest shark film since Jaws!