Open Water

[Jeremy Blackman]

The whole movie is counterintuitive. It's ultimately unsuccessful as a horror movie, but it works on a completely different level. The usual horror victim empathy is (or should be) replaced with pity.

minor spoilers

The most important line of the movie:

I wanted to go skiing!

And I thought this was pretty interesting...

If not as aptly average-looking as the Blair Witch crew, the couple appears realistically damned by a combination of fashionable outdoorsiness and suburban invincibility as they jet off for a quickie Caribbean getaway . . . As mysterious splashes and nudges increase in menace, Kentis's terrifying nod to the indiscriminate feeding habits of sea life becomes a play on Bush-stoked first-world fears of unforeseen attack and a takedown of everyday bourgeois vanity.[/list:u]

[cine]

spoilerrss

Saw it tonight. Yeah it was pretty intense.. I must defend the film first off:

It's ultimately unsuccessful as a horror movie, but it works on a completely different level.

.. That's because it's a thriller. Not a horror.

what a terrible movie. mediocre camera work. zero character development.

The camera work was done raw like that because it gives it a more realistic feel. Like a camera guy is watching two real human beings stranded. And it worked for me, at least. As for the character development - - you didn't catch the arguments between the two out in the water? That was enough character development for me.

skip it, wait for video.

May as well shell out the few extra bucks to see it on the big screen. Because it won't have the same effect on you that it would in the theatre.

Now as for the rest... yeah, the nudity on the bed in the first 15 mins confused the hell out of me. What was the point? They were showing their feelings for each other and everything. Yeah, romance is okay to establish their love, but the full nudity was just pointless.

Him dying was pretty neat.. I kind of expected ONE of them to die. And then the search party goes nuts...... then she takes off her shit and drowns herself/feeds herself to the sharks. I actually shouted "WHAT??" when that happened. Just because I knew every other person in the theatre was thinking it.

Oh yeah, and that shark that was gutted.. I was waiting for the guy's head to fall out. So much for that.

After the credits were done rolling.. a guy a few rows back said, "worst piece of shit i ever saw."

Ah well. If he was walking in expecting Jaws that was his own problem. Good movie, but I don't need to see it again.

[modage]

It's ultimately unsuccessful as a horror movie, but it works on a completely different level.

.. That's because it's a thriller. Not a horror.
SPOILER Oh yeah, and that shark that was gutted.. I was waiting for the guy's head to fall out. So much for that.

i agree, i think for it to be 'horror' it must contain an element of the supernatural.  this being based on 'true events' and seeming pretty plausible this doesnt really qualify.  SPOILER i also was waiting for an arm or something to fall out.

[pete]

aren't there entire subgenres of horror movies that aren't supernatural, that only involves serial killers, sci-fi mutants, or just plain ugly animals?  the first holloween, friday the 13th, and texas chainsaw were all about psycho killers (not to mention classics like Psycho and Peeping Tom), or movies like Alien, Aliens, and The Fly, or movies like Man's Best Friend, and, what the hell, JAWS.

Texas Chainsaw was supposedly based on true events as well.

[matt35mm]

There's nudity is this??

Now I'm slightly interested... in watching the first 15 minutes.

I'm a perv.

[Ghostboy]

The nudity is funny, because she's sitting on the bed in a way that leaves her legs slightly open, and there's a twisted fold of sheet tucked there to hide her vagina, which looks totally ridiculous and unnatural. The first twenty minutes are so amateurish that I think it might have unfairly tainted my opinion of the rest of the film.

[pete]

yeah, when you thought the first 1/4th of a film you're watching is shitty it sometimes tends to taint your opinion of the rest of the film.

[Alethia]

The nudity is funny, because she's sitting on the bed in a way that leaves her legs slightly open, and there's a twisted fold of sheet tucked there to hide her vagina, which looks totally ridiculous and unnatural. The first twenty minutes are so amateurish that I think it might have unfairly tainted my opinion of the rest of the film.

you can see just a quick glimpse of it...trust me, i walked in on that fucking scene twice yesterday doing theater checks, and oh boy did i stop to watch

[cine]

you can see just a quick glimpse of it...trust me, i walked in on that fucking scene twice yesterday "doing theater checks", and oh boy did i stop to "watch"

[modage]

aren't there entire subgenres of horror movies that aren't supernatural, that only involves serial killers, sci-fi mutants, or just plain ugly animals?  the first holloween, friday the 13th, and texas chainsaw were all about psycho killers (not to mention classics like Psycho and Peeping Tom), or movies like Alien, Aliens, and The Fly, or movies like Man's Best Friend, and, what the hell, JAWS.

Texas Chainsaw was supposedly based on true events as well.

well, by supernatural i didnt mean strictly 'ghosts' or 'the undead' or whatever.  i just meant.... of or relating to existence outside the natural world. OR attributed to a power that seems to violate or go beyond natural forces.

halloween is horror because its not realistic, its about a killer that cant be killed.  (see: end of the film), and especially as the sequels roll on its clear that he is not just a normal serial killer.  same for friday the 13th or even texas chainsaw, even though some of the events were supposedly 'inspired' by ed gein, i think its pretty safely horror.  even Jaws, its not just a shark, its like a shark that is an (almost) unstoppable killing machine.  not typical shark behavior.  i guess psycho since it sort of started the slasher genre (which is a subgenre of horror) could be considered a horror movie although it seems more like a thriller to me.  i dont think peeping tom is a horror movie.  alien/aliens/thefly are all sci-fi/horror so they count.  the supernatural element isnt the only qualifier, but usually if the story is grounded somewhat in a believable reality like Silence of the Lambs, (which i think is a psychological thriller) etc. its not a horror movie exactly.  to me anyways.

[El Duderino]

yeah, you can see bush when she reaches to turn off the light.

[Jeremy Blackman]

I definitely think it's a thriller, which is why the horror movie I expected did not materialize.

I think a thriller is "Oh God they're going to eat us" whereas a horror movie would be "Oh God they're eating us."

And a thriller, like this one, can be psychological too... not to mention sociopolitical.

Sorry.

[MacGuffin]

Source: Digital Bits

Coming to DVD from Lions Gate is Open Water on 12/28.

[SHAFTR]

I was really excited about this when I heard about the film, but I never got around to see it in the theatres, for some reason.

I have very mixed reactions to it.

The first 15 minutes is unbelievably bad, I thought I was watching Busty Cops.  I still can't get past how bad this part was.  It was obviously just added to hit 80 minutes, atleast thats how it felt for me.

The scenes in the water, I think, are very good.  They are simple, but effective.  The film uses it's simplicity to create the tension, with the amateur acting combined with the sparse music.  The DV also works in these scenes.

I have no problem with the ending, I actually liked it.

Overall, ***1/2 out of 5 stars.

I think the film would have been better had the first 15 minutes been shot with film in a Hollywood style.

[Dtm115300]

I don't know. I thought the film was pretty boring. The first half of the movie was terrible, and the rest was in the water which was fine; I didn't get to much out of this movie. I give it two out of five stars.