Two sisters vacationing in Mexico are trapped in a shark cage at the bottom of the ocean. With less than an hour of oxygen left and great white sharks circling nearby, they must fight to survive.
A young woman, born at the turn of the 20th century, is rendered ageless after an accident. After many solitary years, she meets a man who complicates the eternal life she has settled into.
Director:
Lee Toland Krieger
Stars:
Blake Lively,
Michiel Huisman,
Harrison Ford
Searching for a cure to Alzheimer's disease, a group of scientists on an isolated research facility become the prey, as a trio of intelligent sharks fight back.
Director:
Renny Harlin
Stars:
Thomas Jane,
Saffron Burrows,
Samuel L. Jackson
Four teen girls diving in a ruined underwater city quickly learn they've entered the territory of the deadliest shark species in the claustrophobic labyrinth of submerged caves.
A young woman, while attempting to save her father during a category 5 hurricane, finds herself trapped in a flooding house and must fight for her life against alligators.
Director:
Alexandre Aja
Stars:
Kaya Scodelario,
Barry Pepper,
Morfydd Clark
Stephanie is a single mother with a parenting vlog who befriends Emily, a secretive upper-class woman who has a child at the same elementary school. When Emily goes missing, Stephanie takes it upon herself to investigate.
In the taut thriller The Shallows, when Nancy (Blake Lively) is surfing on a secluded beach, she finds herself on the feeding ground of a great white shark. Though she is stranded only 200 yards from shore, survival proves to be the ultimate test of wills, requiring all of Nancy's ingenuity, resourcefulness, and fortitude.Written by
Sony Pictures Entertainment
The shark had multiple personalities, although one digital shark became the main adversary to Blake Lively the filmmakers deliberately crafted a few different shark "stages" VFX supervisor Anderson explained it began with "The early naturalistic shark, representing the fact that Nancy just wandered into a sharks feeding situation before becoming a more directed shark during the buoy sequence and leading into the more directed and stylized action of the flare sequence, culminating with Nancy in the water and finale with the shark, through it all footage of real sharks were used to give use that sense of balance from the simplicity of a fin through the water s-curve of a shark swim, the gills reactions, the motion of the 'lips' and an overall sense of mass. This was all driven by reality, but controlled by animators following Jaumes desires for each scene". See more »
Goofs
When the kid at the start of the film is watching the found GoPro video, we see the surfer take a tumble on a wave and that's when the shark gets him. When the events are playing out during the film, the same surfer is in a completely different scenario when he's attacked. See more »
Quotes
[first lines]
Carlos:
[looks at photo]
Is that you on the beach?
Nancy:
Oh, no, no, that's my, that's my mom.
See more »
Bird Set Free
Written by Sia (as Sia Furler) and Greg Kurstin (as Gregory Kurstin)
Performed by Sia
Courtesy of Monkey Puzzle Records/RCA Records
End credits.
By arrangement with Sony Music Entertainment See more »
User Reviews
Nifty, well-crafted shark thriller boasting a strong lead performance by Blake Lively.
The Shallows knows exactly what it is, and that's the best praise I can give it. It's barely 90 minutes long, has a small cast, and only one location. Its only purpose is to give you a thrill-ride during that time; an adrenaline rush based on an ubiquitous fear among humans: being stranded in the ocean with a shark. However as the title suggests, this doesn't take place in the middle of the ocean. This woman is stranded only a couple hundred yards from the shore, close enough to potentially shout for help. What The Shallows does so well is establish this sense of isolation and hopelessness for our main character, and her situation of being so close yet so far from safety.
Blake Lively is great in this role. It's mostly a reactionary role - not much dialogue aside from some early establishing conversations to develop her character. For the majority of the film Lively is terrified and fighting for survival against a deadly shark. This thing is huge, like the Jaws' shark's father huge. And it's interesting to see how she follows its patterns and observes its behavior, allowing her to act accordingly without being trapped. There are some far-fetched scenes, sure, but Jaws had them as well and it's hailed as a classic. Now I'm not saying The Shallows is as good a movie as Jaws, because it certainly isn't. But again, the movie knows what it is, and as a short shark thriller appealing solely to our primal fear, it gets the job done and then some.
Now, it has its faults. The electronic music during the surfing scenes was immediately off-putting, and there are some slo-mo shots that definitely did not deserve to be in slo-mo. But the directing as a whole is well done - gorgeous sweeping shots of the open ocean, the slow build up before the initial attack, showing the shark only when it's most effective. The writing is clever and practical, relatable to the point that you feel for this character's predicament, and the acting as I said is top notch. The Shallows doesn't break any new ground, but it does exactly what it sets out to do - give the audience yet another reason to avoid the beach.
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The Shallows knows exactly what it is, and that's the best praise I can give it. It's barely 90 minutes long, has a small cast, and only one location. Its only purpose is to give you a thrill-ride during that time; an adrenaline rush based on an ubiquitous fear among humans: being stranded in the ocean with a shark. However as the title suggests, this doesn't take place in the middle of the ocean. This woman is stranded only a couple hundred yards from the shore, close enough to potentially shout for help. What The Shallows does so well is establish this sense of isolation and hopelessness for our main character, and her situation of being so close yet so far from safety.
Blake Lively is great in this role. It's mostly a reactionary role - not much dialogue aside from some early establishing conversations to develop her character. For the majority of the film Lively is terrified and fighting for survival against a deadly shark. This thing is huge, like the Jaws' shark's father huge. And it's interesting to see how she follows its patterns and observes its behavior, allowing her to act accordingly without being trapped. There are some far-fetched scenes, sure, but Jaws had them as well and it's hailed as a classic. Now I'm not saying The Shallows is as good a movie as Jaws, because it certainly isn't. But again, the movie knows what it is, and as a short shark thriller appealing solely to our primal fear, it gets the job done and then some.
Now, it has its faults. The electronic music during the surfing scenes was immediately off-putting, and there are some slo-mo shots that definitely did not deserve to be in slo-mo. But the directing as a whole is well done - gorgeous sweeping shots of the open ocean, the slow build up before the initial attack, showing the shark only when it's most effective. The writing is clever and practical, relatable to the point that you feel for this character's predicament, and the acting as I said is top notch. The Shallows doesn't break any new ground, but it does exactly what it sets out to do - give the audience yet another reason to avoid the beach.