Open Water Review
by Mark R. Leeper (markrleeper AT yahoo DOT com)March 7th, 2005
OPEN WATER
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: A simple and ingenious horror premise drives
Chris Kentis's film of two tourists who are
accidentally left abandoned in shark-infested
tropical waters. Chris Kentis is the director,
writer, editor, and the cinematographer in this
low-budget and sparse, but very effective thriller.
The film is short and anything but sweet. Rating:
high +2 (-4 to +4) or 8/10
OPEN WATER really is one of the grimmest and most frightening horror films that come to mind. The reason is simple. It does not rely on ghosts or vampires or science-created monsters. The horror is brought about by something as common as a counting problem. To most viewers the concept of a vampire has a distancing effect, since few of us ever expect to meet a vampire. But we have seen people make counting errors all the time. And we rarely think about the cases when such a small error could be the difference between life and death. And the story of OPEN WATER is inspired by actual incidents.
Blanchard Ryan plays Susan and Daniel Travis plays Daniel, two young successful people who go together to the Caribbean for a vacation of sun and fun and water. They go out with a boatful of tourists to open water to dive in the deep azure waters of the Caribbean. While they are out swimming the crew's count of who has gotten back on the boat is confused by one obstreperous tourist who apparently could not go in the water and then could-- again a normally pedestrian situation. A mistake in counting is not unlikely and is a common sort of mistake, but in this case it is a very dangerous one. Susan and Daniel surface to discover that they are floating in the water without any boats around. They have been told that the sharks in these waters are harmless, but sharks are not the only hazards of the open sea. Writer Chris Kentis has a good feel for the dialog and the stages of reaction that people in this situation would go through. (I am not saying that I believe my wife and I would blaming each other and giving in to recriminations so soon if we were in a situation of this type, but I am not denying it either.)
The basic story is so uncomplicated it could have been told in half an hour, so even this short film of 79 minutes has been stuffed with a fair amount of island paradise and nature photography. It does a little to enhance the mood but mostly seems filler to act as spacer between plot developments. Kentis treads a narrow path between having this nice photography create the mood and having it be an annoyance distracting from the central story. Luckily he is able to make sure that even as we see the tropical paradise footage, our minds are elsewhere worried about the fate of the two swimmers. There is also some attractive ocean photography which at the same time advances the story. Where I think that Kentis does make an artistic mistake is having a musical score that includes human voices singing. This tends to undercut the feeling that the two swimmers are so utterly isolated. The musical score better enhances the "tropical paradise" feel than the terrifying situation that the two unlucky swimmers are feeling.
Kentis had an intelligent idea how to make a really good tense believable horror film on a modest budget and that has not been done so effectively since the BLAIR WITCH PROJECT and classics like CARNIVAL OF SOULS. To do so much with so little is a talent to be admired. I rate OPEN WATER a high +2 on the -4 to +4 scale or 8/10.
Mark R. Leeper
[email protected] Copyright 2005 Mark R. Leeper
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
