The Reef

I watched The Reef on a flight back from Australia last night. The Reef is a 2010 Australian film that tells the story of a group of five friends whose sailing boat capsizes off the coast of Queensland. Because their boat is sinking, four of them decide to swim to the nearest land, a mere 15 kilometres away! There are great white sharks in the water, and they will get stalked by them. This movie, based on a true story, belongs obviously to the horror genre, but I found it quite good. It is not gory, and the story is as much about friendship and courage than about the sharks and the water. What I liked about it is that it doesn't fall into the trap of using the usual horror effects (dark filming, music and montage) to tell the story. It's not too long either (1.5 hour), which I prefer. I've had a look since at the trailer and was pretty disappointed. The trailer is everything the movie is not: voyeur, gory, silly, cheap…

The film reminded me of another one in the same genre: Open Water, but I think The Reef is better.