The new shark thriller, 47 Meters Down, does just that and more in the just-released thriller.
Directed by Johannes Roberts from a screenplay co-written by Roberts and Ernest Riera, the shark thriller stars Claire Holt, Mandy Moore, Chris Johnson, Yani Gellman, Santiago Segura, and Matthew Modine.
Vacationing with her sister, Kate (Holt), in Mexico, Lisa (Moore) has just broken up with her ex-boyfriend, Stuart. While she wants to have some adventure to make Stuart jealous, she has to be talked into going shark diving by her more adventurous sister. Once they are in the protective cage and catch a view of a Great White, Lisa’s ready to go back to the boat.
As they make their climb back to the surface from five meters down, the worst has happened: the cage broke away from the boat and they are drifting very quickly to the seabed. They are too deep for their communication device to work and every time they try to radio for help, they are put into harm’s way. It’s certainly not a position that anybody wants to be in. Every minute counts as their oxygen supply decreases.
“I’d like audiences to be utterly terrified,” the director says of the thriller. “I want the audience to feel like they’re experiencing something that, no matter how much money you paid them, they would never want to do.”
The filmmakers decided against doing reaction shots on the boat and making a decision to stay underwater with the sisters was a great idea. This may be what separates 47 Meters Down from other shark thrillers.
In reading the screenplay, Moore found that “the most terrifying aspect of the script was not the sharks; it was the idea of running out of air while you’re trapped at the bottom of the ocean with no way to get up.”
The film provides a lesson on what not to do if you’re ever in this situation. When the captain tells you to stay in the protective cage, it’s not a wise idea to swim to another area further away. For what it’s worth, all the sharks in the film were added in post-production.
Originally scheduled for a home video release last year, Entertainment Studios bought the rights from Dimension films and opted to give it a theatrical release instead. Whether this was a good idea remains to be determined. Anyone that loves a good shark thriller will see it but it doesn’t quite compare to last year’s Blake Lively film, The Shallows.
Distributed by Entertainment Studios, 47 Meters Down launched into theaters on June 16, 2017.
