20 Summers Later, I’m Still Haunted By Scary Shark Movie, ‘Open Water’
I’ll get this out of the way right here: the 1975 film Jaws is a very scary shark movie. It’s certainly one of the best and probably the most impactful. Jaws is often credited with creating the “summer blockbuster.” But to me, it’s not the scariest.
Jaws Is A Scary Shark Movie
And don’t get me wrong: Jaws had decent special effects for the time and obviously was really scary to millions who saw it in theaters at the time. I saw it again recently: it’s still scary! But it was essentially a monster movie that was slightly more based in reality than most. After all, King Kong, Godzilla, Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Werewolf don’t actually exist. Great white sharks do exist and have, in fact, attacked people. They are real-life creatures and can be dangerous.
But we now know that sharks don’t behave the way they do in the film. In a Scientific American article called “Jaws: Classic Film, Crummy Science,” shark expert Greg Skomal points out that the film and the book that it’s based on exaggerated a lot. “The white shark in the film was far larger than normal—about 25 feet—while the largest animals in the wild are typically 15 to 18 feet,” he said. “They had it satisfying hunger by consuming humans. They don’t do that. White sharks did not evolve with humans as prey or food. The Jaws shark even seemed vindictive, attacking the boat and going after the captain. White sharks certainly don’t do that. It became this epic battle between the shark and the people chasing after it.”
Yet the public believed that sharks were monsters with a taste for human flesh. Peter Benchley, the author of the novel on which the film was based, seemed to have regrets about writing it, despite its success. The New York Times quoted him as saying, “Knowing what I know now, I could never write that book today. Sharks don’t target human beings, and they certainly don’t hold grudges.”
Open Water Is A Very Scary Shark Movie
So, while Jaws is certainly a scary movie, it’s made less so by the fact that it’s just not realistic. But a shark movie that I saw in the summer of 2004 chilled me to my bones. I’ve re-watched Jaws a bunch of times. But I’ve never gone back to see Open Water again. It was a fairly low-budget film without famous actors or directors attached. You may not have heard of it.
Open Water, released to film festivals in 2003 and more widely in 2004, has a pretty simple storyline. Daniel (Daniel Travis) and Susan (Blanchard Ryan) are having issues in their relationship. They go on a scuba diving vacation. They go on a guided trip with a large group. While underwater, they split from the group. When they surface, the group and the boat are gone.
How did this happen? There were twenty divers on the boat. Everyone has a buddy. And one pair got out of the water and were counted. They went back in the water, and when they got back out again, they were counted again. There were eighteen divers on the boat, but the guides, not being too careful, counted twenty, and the boat left. I’m a scuba diver, and I’ve seen this almost happen. If you’re keeping to yourselves and don’t know any of the other pairs of “buddies” on the boat, it’s very possible that no one would notice your absence.
The bulk of the movie is Daniel and Susan floating in the middle of the ocean. There’s not a lot of action. Instead, the fear lies in the conversations they have while fighting hunger, thirst and exhaustion. And panic: as the hours pass, they realize that no one is coming back to get them. Imagine being stranded in the ocean with your significant other, and things haven’t been going that well. What would you talk about? What wounds might reopen? What apologies might you offer?
That sense of dread and isolation and desolation is a horror movie in and of itself. Now add the jellyfish. And the sharks.
The sharks look realistic, and they behave realistically. That’s because they’re real sharks in open water. Travis and Ryan may be great actors, but the fear you see on their faces is likely real: they were in the water, unprotected, with the sharks. The directors chummed the water to attract sharks and started filming.
The film has been compared to The Blair Witch Project (which we recently wrote about. Like Blair Witch, Open Water feels real. But if you don’t believe in witches, you can reject the premise of The Blair Witch Project. By contrast, the events of Open Water are entirely possible and feel a bit too real for comfort.
Jaws’ promotional posters warned, ”You’ll never go in the water again.” It didn’t have that effect on me, and neither did Open Water. But I’ve always made sure to introduce myself to some of the other divers on the boat when I’m going out for a dive, and I don’t swim off on my own.
I don’t know if I would recommend this movie to anyone. But, if you’re a scuba diver, I would recommend making sure your dive guide knows your name and face.
