RATING (0 to ****): **

In celebration of the great success "Paranormal Activity" has gotten, I felt like it was time to revisit the last indie camcorder flick whose saturated wide release and critical acclaim were outright mind-boggling: Chris Kentis' "Open Water", which back in 2004 I considered the standard for cinematic mediocrity.

Kentis frequently employs upside-down angles and extreme close-ups, intent to make you sick even before the title has appeared. This isn't good, since there's plenty of other things to hate. For starters, there's the extremely slow pacing; since we get so many redundant scenes, like numerous travelogue shots and conversations between the couple Susan and Daniel (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) which go on too long for what they're trying to accomplish, and not to mention horrible acting from both leads (especially Ryan), it doesn't take long for one to get to the root of the problem.

Kentis' film runs 80 minutes, which for a feature-length film is already very, very short. It takes around 20 of those minutes before the tour boat gets into the middle of the ocean, and ten more minutes for everyone to explore the water, and the catalyst for these events: two divers jump back into the water, and two different people run the tally. So even though two seats are obviously empty, and an actual head-count wouldn't have hurt, the boat takes off without Susan and Daniel. Ten minutes of screentime later.

(since it was "based on true events", I'm going to assume the same thing happened in real life, even if the film really doesn't give much incentive to care)

That's right. It's a grand total of 30 minutes before the film finally gets started. Some have used the "film runs like a home video gone awry" argument, but when you watch "Open Water", it's pretty obvious they're trying to squeeze as much runtime as possible from a script which really has 45 minutes of material. It takes 30 minutes for it to get moderately interesting, although never genuinely scary.

Susan and Daniel tread water, bicker and moan about where their spot is and where the boat took off, until Susan ingests sea water, gets sick, and they're playing the Kevin Bacon game. The film has one genuinely good aspect, which it took "Paranormal Activity" to realize: the sharks. "Open Water", despite its poor craftsmanship, did have something remotely worth paying a ticket for, if only for having something you couldn't literally do in your own home with a camcorder, some friends, and kitchen utensils.

As mentioned before, Ryan's acting does no favors, with screams and moans that border on parody. So every jump scene where a shark appears is funny rather than frightening. At the inevitable moment when Susan and Ryan explode and scream at each other, we get to some incredibly funny, weird lines, including "I wanted to go skiing!" and what's practically the film's catchphrase, "We're STUCK in the MIDDLE OF THE OCEAN!"

Finally, we get to the terror climax, at night, with a heavy lightning storm, which works with some very easy tricks. It's the sound that really makes the scene, as flash-frames of sharks and the horrified faces of Susan and Daniel contribute to some good tension.

Will this film scare you out of the ocean? Unlike "Paranormal Activity", "Open Water" was a case where the audience didn't agree with the critics. If you haven't seen it, it's a great film to riff on with your friends (or by yourself due to the amount of filler); next time you see a shark, your impulse might be to laugh.

Five years later, I see the effort was there to make a genuinely good, real horror flick. I dread the film it would take in order to have a similar level of appreciation for "Paranormal Activity".


MPAA: R (language and some nudity)
Runtime: 1 hour, 20 minutes (77 minutes of "real movie", with end credits scene)