It’s no secret I’m an absolute sucker for any film with a big monster, rabid dog/bear/rat-monkey, dinosaur, or most of all, a monster beneath the sea. Not many things make me feel uneasy and I don’t believe in anything spiritual, so often the supernatural in horror movies doesn’t evoke too much fear in me, however the ocean is petrifying. A murky, dark, never-ending abyss chocked full of the unknown? No thank you, I’ll stay on land.
So when they announced the release of The Shallows, I’m first in line, and I don’t particularly care if the concept is ridiculous, or if the budget was $100; if it has a killer shark in it, I’ll watch it. I even went to see Shark Night 3D [however much I lived to regret it]. The constant hunt for a shark on the big screen that is remotely passable for the real thing goes on and on, and recently as computers have taken over, and is by far the cheaper option, the lack of real shark shots or animatronics has been all too painfully evident. So I went in expecting the worst; perhaps not Sharknado, not quite Deep Blue Sea, and most definitely not Jaws, but I left entertained and wanting more.
Blake Lively does her best with a very simple albeit effective thriller narrative, but the real star of the show is the cinematography, which from the start is spectacular [however much the tech product placement is repeatedly force-fed to the audience]. The camera shows us things no other sea-based movie has with its breath-taking underwater imagery, and impressive special effects. Throughout the 1 hour 27 minutes the shark feels very much alive, threatening and most of all SOLIDLY real within the setting.
This is a must see in a cinema setting for any shark-movie fan, or for anyone that has ever felt uneasy at the thought of things that lurk beneath the waves like I have.
