The Reef begins with Luke, Matt, Suzie and Kate all meeting up together at the airport. Kate is Matt’s sister and former girlfriend of Luke before he was with Suzie. They have met to travel by yacht to the Great Barrier reef. Travelling with them is their friend Warren who is helping to skipper the boat for them. Visiting the island, disaster strikes as on their return to the yacht the dinghy bursts, causing panic. But the worst is yet to happen. The yacht then strikes the reef causing water to seep in, causes it to capsize! Yikes!
Luke decides that they should swim North in the direction of Turtle Island but Warren refuses to go saying he knows the water and fears being attacked by a shark. Reluctantly leaving him at the yacht, the friends begin their treacherous journey.

For the rest of the film we watch as the group swims accross the ocean. When the friends see their first glimpse of a shark, fear is etched on their faces. Luke is a natural leader and he continues to reassure his friends that they will reach safety and that help will come.
He shows the least fear out of the friends but is actually the one checking under the water most frequently to see whether the shark is heading in their direction or not.

There are plenty of jumpy moments with the shark brushing past the scared swimmers. Kate in particular gets hysterical but it is this noise which only attracts the shark more to the friends.
Needless to say one of the friends suffers for this as they swim out to retrieve Kate’s swim float.

The performances from all the cast are very impressive and particular mention has to go to Damian Walshe-Howling as Luke and Zoe Naylor as Kate.

The underwater filming in the movie is amazing and only heightens the realisation of how alone you would feel, out in the ocean with no reassurance of ever being rescued.
The director, Andrew Traucki, faced the challenge of keeping our attention in what is a very isolated environment with only 4 cast members. Happily he has excelled himself and made a movie which not only keeps you on the edge of your seat, but even allows you to get to know the 4 friends and to feel compassion for them as disaster strikes.

I would recommend this film to anyone who loves shark movies and who is not necessarily in for the blood. Oh, and for those that appreciate films that have a plot.
If after viewing, you like the work of Andrew Traucki, I recommend another of his works – Black Water.
One downside is that it would appear that The Reef isn’t really is ‘based on true events’ in an accurate sense. Not that I could see after a bit of web research anyway!

Movie Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Trailer:

A group of friends go to see the beautiful Great Barrier Reef and are excited by the prospect of being able to see amazing creatures that live there. Sea turtles, whales, starfish, exotic fish… Oh, and KILLER SHARKS!

That darned reef isn’t so beautiful when it tears a hole in the boat and leaves the group slowly sinking into the blue, terrified about what might want to eat them for dinner (or lunch, depending on when it happens).

Should they stay and wait for help (and end up getting killed/eaten) or swim the 10 miles for shore (and potentially end up getting killed/eaten)?

From the director of Black Water and Frozen, and with an all Australian cast, The Reef promises lots of survival thrills and Jaws-esque scares.

Check out some clips:

The story of a city cop coming to a quiet town, only to be met by a menace has been a reoccurring theme in horror/thriller for years but Brody has the Mayor and peak tourist time to contend with before he sets sail to hunt the shark. After a spate of shark attacks on Amity Island Chief Brody implores the town to close its beaches, but with their livelihood at stake the islanders refuse.

It is well documented that Spielberg, and his crew, had terrible trouble controlling Bruce the Shark and it surely has to be the most fortuitous problem in cinema lore.
The young director took the decision to hide the shark from the viewer for the majority of the picture and use Hitchcockian suspense as the main driver for our fear – and it works an absolute treat. Alright, when we see the shark it is clearly a rubber puppet but the image of Bruce devouring the Orca and Quint stayed with me for a very long time as a youngster.

John Williams’ ominous score knits the whole picture together with a sense of dread and urgency and a theme that even people who haven’t seen the film can hum on demand.
I can’t recall too many films where the score is as much a character as the monster/villain (maybe only paralleled by The Exorcist or Halloween) and it is as fierce as Bruce.

Jaws is as relevant, scary and thrilling as it was thirty years ago and I’m still afraid to go into the water.

Movie Rating: ★★★★★ 

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Trailer:

Additional film information: Jaws (1975)