The Shallows aka Jaws Whatever Number We're on at this point

[Winter]

Since Chuck has talked about Jaws I figured I would bring up another Shark film that was released in 2016. For me personally, I honestly really like this film and consider it underrated and, IMHO, I think it's the best Jaws spiritual sequel ever. Basically a one woman show, The Shallows follows surfer/nurse Nancy as she finds herself trapped on a reef and is trapped their because a she's found herself at a Great White Shark's feeding area.

While not quite as suspenseful as Jaws it's still pretty tense which is helped by Nancy's actor, Blake Lively, giving a fantastic performance and Nancy being an overall likeable and competent protagonist. To contrast with another Spielberg character, Nancy is basically the anti-Nick from Lost World: Jurassic Park. She's smart, does all she can to save people, and it could be argued managed to save several people by killing a killer shark that seems as dangerous as Bruce was from Jaws.

The plot is simple and straight forward, it's a basic survival horror movie and it manages to feel terrifying despite the rather beautiful setting. And again, a big part of why this film works so well is because of Lively's performance. She acts like she's genuinely terrified of her situation and the monster attacking her so we in turn are just as terrified and since she's such a likeable person (she tries to save someone from the Shark that was straight up robing her and was going to leave her to die, you can't get any nicer then this girl).

I also like how, much like Jaws, the film keeps the Shark hidden as it's not until the half way point of the film that we see the full beast and until that moment all we see is it's fin or brief glimpses of it. And the effects on the Shark is pretty damn impressive. The Shark is apparently all CGI with only 3 shots being of a real Shark and it's so convincing that I was completely fooled for most of the film and even in the scenes where it's obviously CGI it's still look really good.

One problem with a lot of Shark driven movies that are attempting to copy Jaws is that they often go to over the top. Deep Blue Sea, The Meg and the Japanese Jaws Rip-off give us Super intelligent sharks or straight up Megalodons. They're not trying to be taken seriously, which is fine, but does IMO cut down on how terrifying these creatures can be.

I don't want to give the impression that I think Great Whites are dangerous and should be killed, I have a very live and let live attitude towards major predators and by that I mean, I'll admire them from a distance and stay out of their way. But like Chuck said, these are still wild animals that are at the top of the food chain for a reason and as such, they are terrifying to think of.

And The Shallows is the only Shark movie I can think of besides Jaws, that really captures HOW terrifying these animals are. Like in Jaws the shark here only kills a handful of people, 3 in total but each death is very well build up and, for the most part, quite terrifying (I think seeing the after math of the first victim was rather silly looking and not at all convincing looking and Nancy's reaction was far more chilling to watch).

The climax is also just as intense as the one in Jaws as Nancy, fed up with all the s#!t she's gone through basically goes F it and decides to spend what she thinks will be her last moments fighting and using the only weapon she has on hand, a flare gun, her surroundings and her wit to fight the Shark. While I still think Jaws is the better of the two movies I consider The Shallows to be pretty damn close in terms of plot, suspense and again Nancy is a really great character and I think this movie deserves more attention then it gets.