The Reef (2010)

A great white shark hunts the crew of a capsized sailboat along the Great Barrier Reef.

The Reef is a 2010 Australian horror film. It was written and directed by Andrew Traucki, and it is his second feature film (the first being the excellent ‘Black Water’). The Reef is about a group of friends who capsize while sailing to Indonesia. The group decides that their best bet for survival is to swim to a nearby island but find themselves stalked by a great white shark.

I first heard about this movie because it starred a couple of people from one of my favourite Australian TV shows, ‘Underbelly’. The basic plot is about Luke (Damian Walshe-Howling) who invites his friend Matt (Gyton Grantley) and Matt’s girlfriend, Suzie (Adrienne Pickering) to join him as he sails to a coral reef. Also joining them is Matt’s sister, and Luke’s girlfriend, Kate (Zoe Naylor) and fellow sailor Warren (Kieran Darcy-Smith). On the second day of their journey, after some fun snorkelling, the yacht strikes a reef and capsizes when the keel is destroyed. This is when the 4 friends decide to swim for it in the hope of finding help, but Warren decides to stay with the boat, alone.

Despite my slight bias from being a huge fan of the two guys acting in this from their ‘Underbelly’ days, the small cast was fantastic here. It’s hard to make much of an impression when you spend most of the time in the water and only showing us viewers your head bobbing round, but they were very believable in their actions, and the suspense and tension throughout the film was relentless. It was nice not to be able to second guess what would happen and who if anyone (obviously the shark attacked someone right?!) would survive.

Every film with sharks in is immediately compared to Jaws. Comparisons are inevitable, and no film has ever lived up to those expectations. I have even reviewed a few shark films on my site (Shark Night, Bait) but without doubt The Reef is the best film with a shark I’ve seen since Jaws. It’s a serious film, there are no 3D gimmicks, no campy attempts at humour and it isn’t set in a supermarket. ‘Open Water’ was the last semi-decent serious shark film I watched, but that wasn’t about the ultimate shark which is the Great White. It wasn’t very good either, and was a bit dull. Despite the shark not appearing for a while into this film, and even then just being used sparingly throughout the rest of the movie, it never gets boring and as mentioned above, it is filled with tension.

For me, aside from the great cast, the best thing about The Reef was that it was filmed using footage of real Great White sharks, and at times when the group are in the water with the shark nearby, especially the clever underwater shots which we see through the use of a diving mask, it truly looks as though the shark is right next to them. The film was praised for having an animatronic shark instead of CGI, and quite honestly it just worked so well.

The film is reportedly based on the true story of Ray Boundy, who was the sole survivor of a similar incident in 1983. Although, according to Wikipedia so take from it what you will, Rob Gaison, the chief executive of Tourism Tropical North Queensland, was concerned about the film being advertised as “based on a true story” which he felt could hurt the tourist industry for the area. Col McKenzie, the CEO of Association of Marine Park Operators, said that previous films about sharks near reefs attacking people such as Open Water had hurt the tourism industry.

Sure, there are people that have said there is no way the shark would hunt and follow the group for as far as it does. But hell, it’s a shark, the ultimate predator, and it’s great just watching and waiting for it to appear and strike.

The bottom line is that I loved The Reef. Great acting, perfectly cast, a fantastic looking shark and (spoiler!) some blood spilled. If you like a good thriller and don’t mind looking at half-naked good-looking Australian people then I urge you to check out The Reef. I wanted to score this higher, and it is better than some films I’ve scored 7, but 8 is just out of reach. Just. This is a high 7/10, probably like a 7.8/10. Just to clear things up 🙂

Posted by Tysoncarter182 on November 7, 2012

https://headinavice.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/the-reef-2010/