Blu-ray Review – The Reef: Stalked

Synopsis:

In an effort to heal after witnessing her sister’s horrific murder, Nic travels to a tropical resort with her friends for a kayaking and diving adventure. Only hours into their expedition, the women are stalked and then attacked by a great white shark. To survive they will need to band together and Nic will have to overcome her post-traumatic stress, face her fears and slay the monster.

What We Thought:

Is The Reef: Stalked any good? Not particularly no, but I have a soft spot for both survivor movies and shark attack flicks. We’ve seen this film dozens of times before, but instead of one person like in The Shallows or two people like in 47 Meters Down, we get 4 attractive women so it’s totally original!

I’m joking about that, it’s clearly an unoriginal story, but I’ll be honest, it’s at least watchable. It doesn’t try to be anything it’s not and sticks to the attractive women in danger plot perfectly. The director made another shark film called The Reef, but I don’t think I ever saw that one so I can’t compare this sort of sequel to his previous film.

What this one does to establish itself as being different from others is give a backstory of a dead sister. The lead actress goes out diving with her sister and two other friends, but something bad happens afterwards and the movie jumps 9 months later. She meets up with her two friends and another sister to get over the death, but of course a shark stalks them in the water.

Basically if you’ve ever seen a horror shark film, you’ve seen The Reef: Stalked before. Despite it trying to use a family loss to drive the plot I ultimately felt that substory wasn’t even necessary. The flashbacks felt jarring and 4 women being attacked by a shark is dramatic enough you don’t need that added trauma. There is one good kill that caught off me guard so that’s definitely a positive, but the characters make decisions no one in real life would make. The beautiful setting and beautiful women don’t hurt, but it’s a forgettable film in a long line of forgettable similar films.