The Reef (2011)

For any of you that has followed the Monday Movie Meme for awhile, you know I'm a big fan of "Jaws".  It made a pretty big impression on me at a young age, to the point where I don't even feel comfortable today getting into the water much past my knees.

Another frightening shark movie was "Open Water", where a couple gets accidentally left out in the middle of shark-infested waters on a scuba trip. 

This weekend, my husband and I discovered a film on our Netflix streaming that was a perfect splice of these two movies..."The Reef".  When was this in the theaters?  It was totally off my radar. 

Based on a true story, the premise is this.  Two couples and a captain head out on a sailboat for a holiday at the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.  At low tide, the boat hits part of the reef and the boat starts to sink.  Knowing that the waters are full of sharks, the captain takes his chances hanging onto the slowly sinking boat.  The two couples take off swimming with a couple of kickboards to an island about 10 miles away.  To get there, though, they have to avoid an aggressive, hungry shark or two.

There aren't many surprises in the movie.  In fact, I was loudly declaring which person was going to die first.  You can always tell.  But it was still intense, with all of the shots of the sharks taken sans CGI or robotics.  The scenery of The Great Coral Reef was gorgeous.  And it was a true story, which ratchets things up a bit for me.  If you like "Jaws" or "Open Water", you definitely need to add this one to your queue.