Subtitles : The Reef: Stalked (2022)

Storyline

Good storytelling isn't about changing the shape of the wheel. It's about making it work as a wheel should but by using different materials. You have to give an audience what they expect, just in an unexpected way. Since 1975 shark movies have tapped into the public consciousness but, technology aside, none have managed to bring the same sense of dread and foreboding as Spielberg's monster hit. And much of that lies in the storytelling and the increasing reliance on VFX to generate the antagonist. There has to be more to make a film worthy in this subgenre of horror than just a few pretty young people out on the open ocean in a contrived manipulated 'reason d' etre'. There has to be heart, soul, emotion, connectivity with audiences on some deeper psychological level - a story that touches audiences who can identify with the core struggles of the characters in some way. If that is absent everyone portayed becomes singularly dimensional, and uninteresting. There is no reason or desire for the audience to identify with or root for the characters. And if the setting is to be almost entirely waterborne then the actions of the characters have to be strong, consistent, natural, and more importantly believable. Horror has a habit of throwing up, and throwing us, characters with so little common sense we struggle to give any credibility to their behaviour. We almost revel in the fact their stupidity will ultimately end in their demise. This comes down to the development of a good strong narrative with well fleshed out 'real' characters who act in ways that audiences can identify with. That doesn't mean stereotypes, or cardboard cutouts, but archetypes, flawed in their realness. When I began screenwriting 25 years ago my script guru taught me one valuable lesson above all I remember in my creations - "write what you know or what you can easily research so that truth is the foundation of your story". So many films I see forget the importance of this. Storytellers that work, in this case, shark movies seem to default to individual belief, not truth, and it harms the end product. And doing so isn't some method of creating suspense, or compressing truth to adhere to an 80 minute running time. It simply is a case of failing to marry truth to suspense as a vehicle for entertainment - because reality is far more threatening, scary, intimidating, and ultimately fatal than anything you could imagine or believe as truth but which isn't. And that brings me conveniently to The Reef: Stalked which unsatisfactory presents, yet again, a Great White as the ultimate ocean threat, off what I can only assume are Polynessian islands in the Pacific. Whilst we are never told where they are the islanders featured suggest to me of say Samoa, or Fiji. In warm Pacific waters the GW isn't the threat it is of temperate waters. Tigers are. And some of them grow incredibly big. Plus of course they are known tacticians and hunters, pursuing prey over long distances - stalking them. In an instant the face of the narrative changes. It presents something familiar but with a distinct difference that provides truthfully more fear and suspense. GWs are apex hunters but they aren't renowned for being methodical scheming pursuers of prey. So truth here is manipulated again for the purpose of shamelessly following trend. And as an audience, and filmmaker I expect more of the story's antagonist than mere regurgitation. The Reef that preceded this was again a GW but the facts that served as a source for it were actually about a huge Tiger shark off Townsvillle and the boat was actually a trawler not a yacht. Which would have presented a more terrifying journey for audiences, truth or the filmmakers idea of truth? I could go on 'ad infinitum' and pick this film, and story, apart but that's not the point of this review. I admire filmmakers tenacity, and I know from first hand experience how hard it is to make a movie. There are so many obstacles to climb over I just feel making your own to add into the mix doesn't help anyone. What I will add just as a final thought though is that VFX doesn't have to be bad, or unrealistic. The cost of creating animatronic sharks is so horrendously expensive CG is the most cost effective way these days. Sadly. The best example I have seen was in "Kon Tiki". If you haven't seen this 2012 movie then do. CG sharks can be made to look terrifyingly real. And in that the truth is assaulting the senses of what we know to be fake and what we struggle to reconcile as real. We have so many miles to travel as filmmakers as we see audiences get 'film smarter', but also when audience attention spans shorten you simply cannot afford to lose them over issues that could be resolved early in the process - a story that is well thought out, smart, and built upon fundamental truths about which there can be no real valid argument.