Coloring Book of the Week: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Trading Cards of the Week: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Donruss)

Model Kit of the Week: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (Aurora Edition)

Pop Art: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (TV Guide Edition)

Lunch Box of the Week: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Seaview Submarine Set (Remco)

Theme Song of the Week: Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964-1968)

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: "Eleven Days to Zero" (September 14, 1964)

As you may recall, at first Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was a successful 1961 motion picture starring Walter Pidgeon as Admiral Nelson.  

The film's detailed miniature for the submarine Seaview and the amazing, high-tech, live-action sets were put into storage afterwards, and by 1964, Allen took them out of mothballs for a new TV series starring Richard Basehart as Nelson, and David Hedison as Captain Lee Crane.  

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea then ran on ABC for four successful seasons and 110 hour-long episodes (most transmitted in color; but with the first season only in black-and-white). 

What remains so compelling about Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea after all these years is that it began as high intrigue on the high sea, with an action quotient that is mostly unmatched even today.  

But, around the time of the second season -- when the series went to color -- the accent moved  away from action towards science fiction and fantasy, and the series began featuring aliens, leprechauns, mummies, "Frost Men" and sea monsters of all shapes and sizes. Season Two also introduced another amazing vehicle to the program, the fantastic "Flying Sub."

But for "Eleven Days to Zero," Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea remains a high-tech action and intrigue series, more along the lines of an early James Bond film than a Star Trek or Lost in Space episode.  Irwin Allen's pilot is not a direct remake of the 1961 movie, though it does re-use miniature footage from the film, and the plot is also pretty similar. 

In this case, instead of dispersing dangerous radiation from the Earth's atmosphere, the Seaview -- "the most extraordinary submarine in all the seven seas" -- is required to avert another planetary emergency.

The Earth has only has eleven days remaining before a huge tsunami  strikes Hawaii, California, the British Isles and even America's East Coast. Millions of people will be killed in the flooding. 

But brilliant Admiral Nelson (Basehart) quickly develops a plan called "Operation Counter Force" with the help of nuclear engineer Fred Wilson (guest star Eddie Albert). 

Specifically, the Seaview will detonate a nuclear device at the North Pole, thereby setting up "opposing lines of force" and "breaking the back" of the enormous tidal wave. 

"We can't debate," Nelson urges U.S. government officials.  "We have to act."

And act he does. 

Before long, the Seaview has set sail with its new captain, Lee Crane, at the helm. Unfortunately, agents of a "hostile" foreign force would prefer to see America and Great Britain decimated, and they make every attempt to prevent the Seaview from accomplishing her critical mission. 

On the way to the North Pole, the Seaview is dogged by an enemy submarine, rattled by depth charges, and ambushed by drone plane attack. Meanwhile, the hard-nosed Crane must prove his worth to the suspicious crew of Seaview, "highly skilled experts" each and every one.

"Eleven Days to Zero" is an exciting and surprisingly violent hour. The episode opens with the brutal assassination of Seaview's first Captain, John Phillips.  In a stunning, non-stop action scene, Phillips' car is run off the road. It tumbles down a hill, and we see the good captain take a bullet wound to the head. The enemy agent -- dangling from an attacking helicopter -- is shot down by Nelson, and the villain plunges into the roiling sea below with a scream.

Again, all this occurs in the first five minutes of the show...

I must admit, I was struck by the high quality of the stunts, action, and pacing on display in "Eleven Days to Zero."  Television today is certainly much  more expensive, but it rarely gets down to such Bond-like action set-pieces, even within the genre. 

And the action scenes aren't the only  impressive ingredient of this over 50-year old broadcast pilot. 

Because Irwin Allen was able to re-use sets, miniatures and underwater footage from the 1961 feature film, he could apparently afford quite a bit in terms of acting extras and new locations/sets. Due to this fact, Seaview actually seems like a real submarine, populated by a real crew.  

In particular, the Seaview bridge (with visible ceiling, no less) is an impressive-looking set even by today's standards, and it appears to be manned by more than the typical TV skeleton crew, as you can see from the accompanying photo. 

It's funny, but in a lot of outer space dramas, the main spaceship always boasts roomy corridors, and relatively few extras on screen at any given point...a visual misstep which seems to go against reality.  

In the final frontier -- as under the sea -- space would surely be at a premium, and a fully manned vessel would seem like...well, a fully manned vessel, not a sparsely-attended hotel.

In terms of sets, "Eleven Days to Zero" depicts a Bond-ian enemy headquarters replete with walls of blinking, 1960s-era computers and strange pulsating light columns. In addition, the pilot's climax -- set at the North Pole -- involves plenty of ice, Seaview's conning tower, and a blinding snow storm.  Not to mention aerial bombardment from the aforementioned drone plane.  It's all pretty impressive.

In terms of tone, there is also something refreshing today about "Eleven Days to Zero" and the episode's total, utter lack of irony or self-reflexive humor.  Every moment of high adventure -- even a tangle with a not-entirely-convincing giant squid mid-episode -- is played  absolutely straight, with the finest production values of the day.  There is no winking or nudging at the audience, only an attempt to portray the action vividly and memorably.

The result of this approach is that "Eleven Days to Zero" moves fast and is actually even sort of gritty in presentation, with the clock ticking down to doomsday, and the threat of death ever-present on all legs of the doomsday mission.

If this pilot had been produced today, no doubt the temptation would have been to provide either Nelson and Crane some canned  "emotional angst," like a bad marriage or a history of alcoholism, or some father-son issues, but Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was born in a different age and so it avoids the modern (and by-now tiring...) fascination with soap opera plotting.  The characters are simply heroic; and the narrative -- the plot -- takes precedence over facile personal psychology.

Which isn't to say that Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was always great....or even particularly good. There are limits to its old-fashioned approach to storytelling too.

To wit, "Eleven Days to Zero" is a cinematic, action-packed pilot, yet it is decidedly humorless, and the characters - though undeniably heroic -- also lack much in terms of individuality and color. In that regards, series such as Star Trek are plainly superior. 

In the Gene Roddenberry series, for instance, the dynamic characters added so much to the sense of action and drama, that the crisis scenarios of the week became all the more interesting...and immediate.  Though the performances here are solid, neither Nelson or Crane ever comes off as nuanced as a Kirk or Spock.   In fact, the only character arc of sorts in "Eleven Days to Zero" involves Crane proving himself to the crew, and establishing that he doesn't "lack imagination" to Admiral Nelson. 

The paucity of character development remains easy to overlook in a single film, or even a series of films.  But on TV, you ultimately come away looking to forge a deeper connection with characters you see every week; with either Crane or Nelson.  The show doesn't have to be a soap opera; it just has to be written with an eye towards the individual characteristics of the protagonists; and their way of relating to their world.

Every film or TV series ever made is a reflection of its time, and so Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea is very clearly a production inspired by the Cold War. Here, a bald, Blofeld/Dr. No/Far Eastern-type villain plots the end of the West (and our freedom...) and is soon taught a destructive lesson in underestimating America and the Free World.   

And Admiral Nelson -- stolidly -- declares at the end of Operation Counter Force that "Seaview's job is never finished.  Not as long as there are destructive forces in the world."

This is not a particularly nuanced approach, but it sure as heck is fun, in a kind of blockbuster movie one-off type-way. 

And that's where Irwin Allen productions, especially in the early days, really excelled.  Both the first season of Lost in Space (1965) and the inaugural year of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea (1964) are absolutely superb in terms of production values and visual presentation.  Both series are eminently worthy as escapist fare, even if they resolutely lack some of the social commentary and artistry of The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits, Star Trek and the other, more appreciated genre efforts of the epoch.

On the same DVD set as "Eleven Days to Zero,"  the last thirteen episodes of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea are also included.  These episodes see the Seaview tangle with a pirate ("The Return of Blackbeard,")  a sea monster/humanoid ("The Lobster Man), mythical monsters ("The Abominable Snowman" and "Terrible Leprechaun") plus aliens from an "ice planet" ("Flaming Ice.")

Out of curiosity, I watched "Flaming Ice" (by Arthur W. Browne) to see how much the series had changed in the 105 or so episodes since "Eleven Days to Zero." 

Succinctly stated, the changes were pretty enormous. 

Though the color photography was lush, the performances strong (especially Michael Pate as the leader of the "Frost Men," named "Gelid") and the sets still impressive, there was not even a casual sense of reality -- scientific, political, moral or otherwise -- about the claustrophobic installment. 

And yet, I still found myself drawn to the colorful, vivid action and stunts of the piece.  In general terms, there's a high nostalgia factor here for me, I suppose.  

I watched this show in reruns as a kid in the 1970s and, honestly, enjoyed it as much as if not more than Lost in Space.  

What appealed to me as a child is what appeals to me about the show now: the amazing, retro-high tech futurism of the 1960s vehicle designs (particularly in the case of the Flying Sub and the Seaview) and the steadfast focus on action, action, action.  I've always been a sucker for stories about submarines and their crews (hence my fascination with Captain Nemo and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...), and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea still sparks the active imagination with abundance.

In the 1990s, Steven Spielberg embarked on a variation of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea called SeaQuest DSV (1992-1995).  It also began with a focus on hard-tech, adventure and "marine research" and then, in its second season, began featuring underwater Greek Gods, giant sea monsters, aliens and the like. 

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea set that identical course first, nearly thirty years earlier, so it is odd to say the least that SeaQuest didn't learn from its predecessor's missteps.

All this week, I'll be reviewing, for Beach Week 2017, several episodes of this classic series.

Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Wisdom of the Week

“It started very well the first couple of years. Then it went downhill, I think, in the third or fourth year. They made it more for kids. I think the saving grace was that some of the acting was so good and my relationship with Basehart was terrific. We had a great rapport.”

David Hedison remembers his time as Captain Crane on the Seaview in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, at The Los Angeles Times.

Beach Week 2017: Shark Night 3-D (2012)

If you recall (the criminally underrated) Back to the Future II (1990), you may remember a “future” scene set in 2015, wherein hero Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox) sees the holographic shark for Jaws 19 and declares that it the creature still “looks fake.”

Well, here we are in 2014, and the sharks of Shark Night (2011) still look fake. 

The mechanical shark called “Bruce” who starred in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws way back in 1975 may not have been wholly convincing – which is why the director often kept it hidden or cut to P.O.V. shots  – but when viewers did see the great white beast, he at least operated by the same laws of physics as we do.  When Bruce broke the surface, water would run off his back.  When Bruce bit a victim, blood would run down between his very sharp teeth.  We might not have always believed Bruce was 100% real, but we believed that he showed up for work, at least.

In Shark Night, the sharks phone it in.

They exist in abundant special effects shots that diminish their size and sense of scale.  Seen in the clear light of day, these “animals” look like under-detailed cartoons.  They can’t scare anyone because they actually bear no connection to the environment forces which purportedly work upon them; forces such as gravity. 

In fact, the sharks of Shark Night not only look incredibly fake – just a step or two up from Jabber Jaw -- they also act in most un-shark-like fashion throughout much of the film, often leaping high out of the water (like…twenty feet out of the water…) to swallow their cowering human prey.  In one of the movie’s least effective kill scenes, a shark intercepts a racing jet-ski …from the front, no less…and leaps several feet out of the water to do so.  On this occasion and several others, director David Ellis lets the shark hold center frame as it leaps towards the screen (for 3-D impact), thereby offering extreme evidence of the animal’s incredible phoniness.

Shark Night earned pretty terrible reviews, and studying these special effects sharks, one can detect why.  That established, I must reluctantly admit I didn’t hate this nearly as much as I thought I might, and that’s because the film unexpectedly plays around in the terrain one of my favorite sub-genres: the savage cinema.  In keeping with that form, the film acknowledges human ugliness as the overriding source of real evil in the world.  In other words, we might escape sharks, but we can’t escape human nature.

In Shark Night, Sara (Sara Paxton) returns to her home on Lake Crosby in Louisiana for the first time in three years along with a group of co-ed friends, including shy Nick (Dustin Milligan), a med-student.  Sara has been away so long because of an accident involving her former boyfriend, local diving expert Dennis (Chris Carmack). 

Back when they were going steady, Sara began to drown on a dive and Dennis wouldn’t share his air with her.  Panicky, she made it back to the surface alive, but when she piloted the boat for home, she accidentally struck Dennis’s face with the boat propeller, permanently scarring him. 

Dennis – who looks no less handsome or buff with that facial scar, by the way -- has never forgotten this traumatic incident, and with the help of a dumb redneck, Red (Joshua Leonard) and the town’s heavy-metal loving sheriff, Sabin (Donal Logue), plans to release several captured sharks upon Sara and her buddies while they frolic on the lake…

You can just tell from the first attack in Shark Night that you’re in a different league here than in Jaws.  Remember that film’s classic prologue, and how a beautiful blonde went for a tranquil midnight swim only to be attacked and killed by a shark?   This introduction to the film remains creepy, unsettling and highly effective, even today.  By point of comparison, Shark Night opens with a blond in a white bikini swimming in the lake and getting attacked almost instantly by a shark.  It’s all thrashing and splashing, and there’s no sense of suspense or even surprise during the attack.  People inclined to use the phrase “they don’t make ‘em like they used to” regarding Hollywood will be sorely tempted to employ it here.

Lacking suspense, Shark Night is abundantly predictable.  If you’ve ever seen a horror movie, you can predict -- down to the last person (and animal) -- the characters destined to survive the film’s bloody events. Also, Joshua Leonard’s character Red is a walking talking cliche, right down to his bad teeth and bad Southern accent.  He’s supposed to be the movie’s comic relief, but again, we’re in cartoon territory here.

And yet, as I wrote above, I didn’t entirely hate Shark Night.  I don’t generally prefer horror movies this dumb and vapid, but they can occasionally be fun if you’re in the mood for something trashy and light. Plus, Sara Paxton is the star here. She was terrific in The Innkeepers (2012) and is very good here too, despite the thinness of her character.

And Shark Night boasts at least one legitimate inspiration.  It turns men into the film’s villains, and gets at the notion that the sharks – while obviously the tools of mass destruction here – aren’t really the ones with the evil intent.  Instead, Dennis and his mates are the ones to blame.  Interestingly, they view themselves as victims.  They’re victims of women (Sara), victims of a bad economy, and victims of class warfare.  Their plan is to make it rich by creating a shark snuff film for fans of cable television’s “Shark Week.”   In other words, they have something to sell, and they’ve had to put their humanity aside to sell it.  

When one of the would-be victims notes that such a money-making enterprise is sick, the evil conspirator notes, importantly “There’s no such thing as sick anymore.  There’s only moral relativism.”  It’s a biting, caustic commentary on our culture, but one entirely of the times.  If you remember Governor Rick Perry’s comment about “vulture capitalists” who go in and eat up companies for profit, you might also see how the metaphor works with sharks.  These animals (like some capitalists) must keep moving forward -- devouring things, resources and people to live -- and the rest of us are, well…merely chum.

I don’t mean any of this commentary to suggest that Shark Night is deep or especially thoughtful, only that it is “of the moment.”  It’s unique that unlike Jaws (1975), the film portrays man as the real terror in the water, one eager to destroy his fellow man for a leg up the economic ladder of success.

The special effects in Shark Night are bad, the characters are mostly barely two-dimensional appetizers, and there’s precious little in terms of interesting narrative.  Yet to his credit, director Ellis seems to know all this is the case, and at times (like during the road trip to Lake Crosby), literally fast-forwards the film so he can get to the meat of the drama – the shark attacks – quicker.

Some may see this photographic trick as an admission of creative bankruptcy.  But contrarily, it may just be an example of efficiently cutting to the chase.  Who wants to see shallow characters talking and relating to one another when we can watch them getting chewed up and spit out instead?

Shark Night isn’t a good film and it isn’t a scary horror movie.  But it is amusingly trashy and lowbrow.  It features moments of interest, especially whenever Donal Logue is on-screen playing-up the resentment angle of his blue-collar economic climber.  I didn’t hate the movie that much, in part because Shark Night was clearly made in a spirit of dumb fun.

However, if I had been the maker of Shark Night I would have gone one step further with the movie, and offered up as its ad-line the very joke from Jaws 19 in Back to the Future 2.

This time, it’s really, really personal.

Beach Week 2017: Shark Night 3-D (2012) Trailer

Beach Week 2017: Bait (2012)

Bait (2012) is an absolutely absurd horror movie about sharks, and yet, it is also joyously absurd.  Lensed in 3-D, the film is, alas, a wash visually.

The director, Kimball Rendall, stages some truly dynamic shots here. He often comes up with great, scary (and funny) compositions.  But he is undone in his efforts by weak special effects at points. 

To put this another way: sometimes the sharks look real, and sometimes they look like bad CGI. There’s no consistency whatsoever.  I was amazed how well some shots hold up to real scrutiny.  And shocked that other shots could be tagged instantly as phony as hell.

In terms of narrative structure -- Bait, somewhat like Jaws 3-D (1983) -- attempts a blend of disaster movie tropes with Jaws franchise ones.  The great Russell Mulcahy contributes a script with co-writer, John Kim, and the film is set on the coast of Australia when a devastating tsunami hits. 

The tsunami floods several coastal blocks, and brings with it a handful of hungry great white sharks and other sea life.  A group of people -- including two robbers, a life-guard, a police officer and his daughter --are trapped inside a grocery store, Oceania Food Mart, when the tidal wave hits.  

Before long, the terrified survivors are climbing to the top of the aisles, while the sharks prowl the same aisles, just feet below them.  In short order, the sharks have realized they like the taste of live human beings, and won’t settle for the mart’s meat, stored in the freezer.

The diverse nature of the random survivors makes for interpersonal frisson, and our lead character -- the young life-guard, Josh (Xavier Samuel) -- is recovering from an earlier tragedy involving his best friend and a great white shark.  As you might guess, he must finally put the past behind him, and battle the sharks for the sakes not only of the trapped shoppers, but his ex-fiance, Tina (Sharni Vinson), who also happened to be shopping at Oceania when the crisis started.

Periodically, Bait also cuts to the submerged parking deck below the mart, where two entitled rich kids (and their dog) are trapped in a car, and heroic stock-boy, Ryan (Alex Russell of Chronicle [2012]) attempts to rescue them.  The scenes involving the dog and the great white shark manage to build up quite a bit of suspense, at least if you’re an animal lover.

The film also feature some good jump scares. At one point, Oceania’s obnoxious and loud-mouthed manager attempts to climb out of the store. He is hoisted up by a rope over a low-hanging vent pipe.  He removes the grill, and is set to climb in and escape from the danger.  Instead, he is confronted with another aquatic life-form…right at face level. 

For me, this was actually the most effective and disgusting scare in the film.

The one thing that periodically deflects suspense and terror -- and sends Bait into Sharknado territory -- is a focus on action movie tropes, particularly larger-than-life heroics.  At one point, Josh takes a rifle in hand, and -- like John McClane in Die Hard (1987) -- goes underwater to battle a great white shark.  

As he does so, he dives into the water brandishing the gun in perfect athletic form.  Another scene is equally far-fetched in terms of staging, involving the capture of a great white by meat hook.  Finally, in the film’s most absurd sequence, a shark is tasered by Josh. Again, this act requires Josh to perform as the equivalent of a gymnast.

These moments are good fun, and incredibly silly, but they effectively put Bait in another genre all-together from Jaws.

This isn’t a scary, intense shark movie grounded in reality.  It’s a roller-coaster ride instead, as eager to garner a laugh as a scream.  Certainly, I can get into that approach, and I had a lot of fun with Bait.  It may enter the so-bad-it’s-good category, but however you parse it, Bait ceaselessly entertains.

Director Kendall, assisted by a knowing script, keeps three or four plot-lines going at once, and provides some key surprises that involve human nature.  At one point, a shopper dons a make-shift cage suit and goes underwater to turn off the store’s power. This scene is so powerful because of the risks the character takes, and the fate he ultimately meets.  It’s not what you expect, but it goes a long way towards exploring the different ways that various individuals respond to a crisis. 

For every heroic character, like this one, however, there’s another -- like the “secret” robber lodged within the group -- who is the exact opposite.  Kendall makes the most of moments involving these life-and-death choices, and there are times in Bait when you will absolutely be on the edge of your seat.

Goofy as could be, but oddly charming, Bait is no critic’s idea of a great movie, or a horror classic for that matter.  But for a night of terror and laughs – cheap thrills, I guess -- it can’t be beat.  I almost never use the word “cheesy” -- I just don’t like to describe movies with that word -- but this movie is legitimately and knowingly cheesy.

My wife is terrified of sharks and couldn’t stand to be in the room with me while I watched The Reef (2010).  However, she emerged from Bait totally unscathed, if that helps you decide whether or not to screen the film.

Beach Week 2017: Bait

Beach Week 2017: The Reef (2010)

Movies like The Reef (2010), much like Open Water (2004), remind us that no matter our toys, our technology, our social class or income level, we are all a part of the natural world, and not separate from it. 

That’s a fact it is all-too easy to forget from our modern, air-conditioned cocoons of safety and security.

And because -- on a day-to-day level -- we are so safe and secure, many of us actually start to believe that we will endure forever;  that our days will continue on and on for eternity.

More Facebook posts. More tweets. More summer blockbusters…

But the truth -- which we interface with occasionally -- is that we remain just as susceptible to mortal injury, or sudden death as any other animal that inhabits this beautiful planet. 

When we’re in the ocean, we sometimes feel that mortality more acutely, because the illusion of control is gone. 

In the ocean, we are buffeted on the tide, splashed by waves, pulled and pushed to and fro.  It is here in this realm of infinite mystery, quite fully, that we start to understand that we are connected with nature, not above it or protected from it.

The Reef concerns five young, attractive vacationers who go for a yachting excursion near Indonesia and must reckon with their place in nature.

Before long, these folks are forced to reckon with an unenviable choice: Desperately swim for an island ten miles distant and in shark-infested waters, or stay with the cap-sized, slowly-sinking ship…also in shark-infested waters.

It goes without saying, but all five of these modern, youthful, hopeful humans desire to live. And not one of them could have anticipated that they would die in this fashion. Or on this particular day.

As prey.

There’s a horrifying simplicity and intelligence underlining The Reef.  There’s almost no artifice in this horror film at all, just five desperate people who would make any deal and take any chance to continue living. 

To some extent, the film’s events -- and perhaps even the order of events -- might be described as predictable right up to and including the final kill sequence.

My wife, a therapist -- who is tortured by films such as this -- often asks me why I enjoy them so much.  According to her, the only “drama” in a movie like The Reef arises in seeing people suffering and, inevitably, dying horribly.

My stock but hopefully well-considered answer is that movies like The Reef remind all of us that life isn’t necessarily about our final destination, which is known, but rather the choices we make in the struggle to avoid that destination as long as possible.

One character here, in the film’s final minutes, makes a choice I totally sympathize with.  I’d like to think I’d do the same thing given the same circumstances, but one never really knows.

Unlike Jaws (1975) The Reef features no real sense of camaraderie among its characters, and it doesn’t reflect any particular social context, like the post-Watergate milieu of Spielberg’s classic. 

Instead, this effective horror film is simply about five unlucky people who go into the water with sharks, and have a very, very bad day.

“You look like a seal in that.  Sharks love seals.”

In The Reef, vacationers Matt (Gyton Grantley) and Suzie (Adrienne Pickering) travel with Matt’s friend Luke (Damian Walshe-Howling), delivering a yacht to a customer near Indonesia. Also along for the ride is Kate (Zoe Naylor), who was once an item with Luke.  Warren (Kieran Darcy-Smith), meanwhile, is a sailor on the yacht who knows the local waters well.

After an excursion on a small island, problems occur on the trip.

The yacht’s inflatable raft/motor-boat is punctured and deflated by a coral reef.  The yacht itself suffers catastrophic damage when the coral rips the keel right off.

Luke proposes a simple choice.

Swim for nearby Turtle Island, or stay and sink with the boat. 

Warren -- who has seen sharks in these waters -- refuses to go.  But Kate, Luke, Matt, and Suzie begin their long swim.  Luke estimates it should take them no longer than five hours to reach land…

Before long, however a great white shark catches sight of the group, and begins hunting…

“The boat is fucked.”

The Reef is an absolutely relentless horror film and one that also plays as extremely plausible.  There are no last minute rescues, no miraculous survivals, and, finally, just a reckoning that fate can be remarkably cruel. 

One character notes early in the film that people are more likely to be killed by a bee sting than by a shark attack, but certainly the odds change dramatically in open water.  The film’s terror quotient also rises when the swimmers realize that they are being attacked not by different sharks, but one very determined hunter…who has been pacing them since they first got their feet wet.

The Reef is dark, but not as nihilistic (and perhaps, not as artistically high-minded…) as Open Water was.  So here the idea is not surrendering the inevitable and going through the five stages of death.  Rather, in The Reef our choices can make a difference, if even a small one. 

For instance, Matt -- once bitten by a shark -- begs his fellow swimmers to stay away from, knowing that they will be attacked next.  But Kate is Luke’s sister, and Suzie is his girlfriend.  They can’t stay away, and their survival is jeopardized.  They behave in an irrational manner, and that fact says something important about the human species. 

At another crucial point, Luke makes a choice about his survival, and about Kate’s, and it is brave, for certain. 

The upshot is that we see that, even in a terrible situation, humans remain human.  Even when facing abject fear and in an environment where we are out of our element, we can make a selection that is valuable, and will be remembered. 

So The Reef may be predictable in broad strokes  -- a  shark attacks swimmers in the water -- but in little ways, it forges these little grace note moments, wherein a character responds with heroism, or selflessness. 

This seems a key point.  A shark is a shark is a shark.  It is going to feed on humans when it gets hungry. 

But man is also man and even in the water, he holds certain relationships and concepts dear.  I appreciate how The Reef compares the two species.  Sharks don’t second guess themselves and worry about those who are mortally wounded.  They don’t hesitate.  They meet their needs, and that’s it.

But humans are of a vastly different tribe, and even in a venue as dangerous as the ocean, cultural rules about valor, honor, and decency play a role.

Can a shark understand the concept of self-sacrifice?

Above, I wrote about the idea that man is not separate from nature, despite all the smart phones, social media and so forth that dominates our 21^st century existence.  There are two worlds -- the world that is really there, under the surface, and the world that we look at every day, on the surface.  

This very notion is played out in the film through a composition that often appears: Luke dons his goggles, peers under the water, and looks about to see if there are any sharks nearby, threatening the group. But above the water, on the surface...everything is calm.

I believe that horror movies like The Reef (and 2010’s Frozen to a similar extent) hold a place of value in the society because they serve as reminders of this fact.  Watching a movie like The Reef, you can’t help but put yourself in the position of Luke, or Matt, or Kate and wonder what you would do.

So The Reef isn’t really just about seeing people die. That idea is sort of built into the concept, and the genre itself.  Instead, it’s about seeing people survive, and people making choices about how they want to leave this mortal coil.

Every now and then it’s good to look up from the monitor or phone screen and consider such things, and that’s why I always argue for the validity and legitimacy of horror movies.  On the surface we might describe them with terms like “torture porn” or “graphically violent,” but horror films are really the only movies in our culture right now that remind us that life doesn’t last forever.

Beach Week 2017: The Reef (2010) Movie Trailer

Beach Week 2017: Open Water (2004)

Shot on digital video, Open Water is a fictionalized account of a harrowing real-life incident. In 1998, an American couple was accidentally abandoned at sea by a commercial scuba diving boat following an incorrect head count.

Directed by Chris Kentis, Open Water depicts the routine of a very modern, very professional, very youthful American couple, Daniel (Daniel Travis) and Susan (Blanchard Ryan). They've ceded too much of their lives to all-consuming careers. When the couple needs a respite from incessantly ringing cell phones and e-mail, Daniel and Susan steal away on vacation to the Caribbean.

Ironically, when the exhausted Dan and Susan get to the islands, they don't relax. Instead, they fill every iota of free time planning expensive, colorful excursions, including a scuba diving trip. But once on the dive, a simple mistake results in the heretofore unimaginable: Daniel and Susan are left behind by their diving boat!

Adrift together in a turbulent, endless sea -- with night falling and sharks circling ever closer -- Daniel and Susan start countenancing the incomprehensible truth. No cell phones are available to call for help. No e-mail can type out a distress message. No rescue infrastructure, bureaucracy or "mommy" government will pluck them from the immediate and mortal danger. The easy, automatic, nay thoughtless technological connection of their daily lives proves an illusion in nature. And out here -- in the swallowing, hungry sea -- they have only each other to hold onto.

The majority of Open Water's scant seventy-nine minute running time is indeed spent at sea, featuring endless, vertigo-producing ocean-level shots of the couple coping with their horrible circumstance. Dan and Susan grow hungry. Fish nip at their legs. They vomit. They urinate. They fall asleep. They clutch at life, and, finally, to each other. It's a chronicle of unceasing agony...a hell on Earth.

The authentic location, the naturalism of the nearby threat (no CGI or mechanical sharks here...just the real thing...) and the capable hand-held camera work weave a more-than-sufficient tapestry of dread. This isn't a movie to watch dispassionately, it's one to experience almost literally as a participant. Those eye-level shots put you in the water too; so that you can almost feel the endless, merciless lapping of the waves.

Yet Open Water also remains an effective horror film because of the template that forms the bedrock of its simple narrative. This movie -- with such spare aesthetics and a blunt depiction of the worst no-win scenario imaginable -- intriguingly mimics Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's famous "five stages of death and dying."

Basically, Kubler-Ross's theory is that in facing mortality, human beings transition through a series of developments or stages. Open Water walks the audience through these five stages, as our protagonists attempt to come to terms with their fate in the pounding, eternal ocean. In other words, the movie -- once it hits the water -- is about preparing for the inevitable.

In accordance with the first stage of death and dying, at first, there is complete denial on the part of these tech-savvy, over-scheduled Americans. Daniel stubbornly clings to the hope that they will be miraculously rescued. In fact, he doesn't even swim towards another boat that is visible on the horizon because he believes so fervently that their diving vessel will recognize the mistake and return to the exact spot where it left them. Needless to say, that doesn't occur.

After a time, anger swallows-up denial. Splashing his hands in the water like a petulant child, Daniel bellows at the top of his lungs and throws a temper tantrum. He is bitter that they "paid" for this experience, the opportunity, essentially, to die at the mercy of the sharks. This too is a subtly funny comment on modern Americans, I suspect. Daniel seems more upset that the company took his money than that he is going to die. Soon.

Daniel and Susan then argue a lot, and she blames him for their crisis. This is her encounter with anger. He remained underwater looking at fish for too long, she complains, and that's why the boat left. It's always nice to be able to blame someone else, isn't it?

Ross's third stage of death and dying is bargaining. So Susan and Daniel talk about how -- if only they could just return to their comfortable life in front of the television and the Discovery Channel -- they wouldn't be so foolish as to entertain a venture like this again. They stepped out of their natural habitat (a technological one, interestingly), and have paid the price.

Shortly, the fourth stage, depression, sets in on our unlucky protagonists.. The doomed couple realizes that no one is coming to rescue them and that this is, indeed, how they are going to die. Here. Today. Now. No TV, Hollywood bullshit. No last minute cavalry coming over the hill.

Ross's fifth and final stage -- acceptance -- is at last broached. In one of the most coldly realistic, unflinching and horrifying scenes I've ever seen in a horror movie, Susan analytically accepts the reality of her situation. This protagonist makes a choice that is carefully weighed as a better option than being eaten by sharks. Our final survivor dips below the sea on purpose...and willingly drowns. With Daniel gone (eaten), Susan lets the ocean take her under...and away from life.

Open Water follows the Ross-style transition from one stage of death and dying to the next stage, from denial all the way through acceptance. The movie climaxes only when all five stages have been adequately vetted, and this structure grants the horror film a kind of artistic completeness and intellect that is all too rare in the American cinema today. It rings scarily true.

I still recall leaving the theater after Open Water feeling discomforted and troubled. The movie doesn't blink, doesn't retreat from the reality of the horrifying scenario, and there is no sunlight to part the dark clouds. Instead, the film reminds us that we don't control our fate. Something as simple and ultimately as meaningless as a mistake — a frigging arithmetic error — could impact our very lives. It's a horrifying thought, and one that we have all considered, no matter how briefly, after the terror we saw on 9/11. And this thematic terrain makes Open Water a profound statement about the human condition today.

Da Vinci once stated that water is the driver of nature. In Open Water, water is the medium that drives our human nature. How do we face inevitable death? Denial? Anger? Bargaining? Depression? Acceptance? Open Water is a brilliant horror film and a great character piece because there's something universal in Susan and Daniel's progression through Kubler-Ross's gauntlet of mortality. We recognize the steps.

And we fear them. For after acceptance...oblivion.