Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis play a busy couple forcing themselves to take some time out to relax. They go to the Caribbean for R & R. Once there they take a scuba diving trip, dive into the water, and then are ...forgotten by the scuba ship. Open Water then chronicles what this couple will endure out at sea. I watch a lot of scary pictures, but this film really affected me a lot more than many I have seen with monsters and blood and whatever else is usually hurled at you in a horror movie. It was downright scary. Much of that is due to the "This really happened in real life" quality the film exudes. It is in fact based on just such an incidence off the coast of Australia. But the frightening aspect also is due in large part to the ordinary nature of the two main characters, everybody else in the film, the simple yet direct direction, and the total lack of "HOLLYWOOD" to be found anywhere. I felt like I could have been Daniel. A film that can make you feel like the possibility even remotely exists for that to happen is working on some level. Open Water works on real fears: negligence, sharks, impending doom, and the horror that sometimes can be wide, wet, empty tracts of nothing but miles and miles of sea water. The meaningless of man can really be measured in those scenes where Daniel and Susan tread for life amidst a background of endless waves with predators all around them. Both Ryan and Travis do very good jobs with this type of material. The director Curtis deserves a lot of praise for his ability to make this whole thing come off so effectively.
Review of Open Water
