The Reef: Stalked (2022)

Look, this movie is BAD. There are some reviews that are going to try to trick you into thinking it's not so bad, but they are LYING TO YOU and want you to waste an hour and a half of your life on this hot steaming pile of garbage! Even Hulu knows it sucks - they only put two ads, both in the first twenty minutes of the movie. Why? Because they don't want you to have any pauses later on where you have time to consider whether you really want to waste MORE time watching the movie than you already have!

For a ridiculously lengthy spoiler-filled synopsis of the movie and the run-down of the ways in which it sucked (plus a couple bonus ways they could have saved it), read on...

So the movie starts with four friends diving in the ocean (two, Jody and Lisa, are I think a couple, though it doesn't seem to be explicitly stated; the other two, Cath and ProtagonistWhoseNameIDon'tRecall are sisters). They leave the ocean and Protagonist notices a bruise on Cath's arm while they talk about this cool diving trip they want to go on, but Cath's boyfriend MIGHT not let her go. Cath doesn't know where the bruise came from (she might as well have said she walked into a door for how subtle this scene is). When they get to the parking lot for the beach, Cath's boyfriend, Australian Ben Affleck, is there to greet her, despite the fact she told him she already had planned on getting a ride home from someone else. She is very clearly reluctant to leave with him, but none of the other women pick up on this somehow?! Jody and Lisa take off and Cath goes with her boyfriend. Before Protagonist gets into her car, she SEES and HEARS Australian Affleck shouting and cursing at Cath. She proceeds to get in her car and drive off anyway!!! In what world do you not head over and say something when you see your SISTER getting shouted at by her partner?? If it was a stranger, MAYBE I see not wanting to get involved, but a friend or loved one? SURE, JAN.  

Cath, of course, almost immediately gets murdered by Australian Affleck, and Protagonist is the one to go to her house and find her body after she was drowned in her bathtub. The bulk of the movie takes place nine months later during the trip they were talking about at the beginning, the one Cath always wanted to go on: three days and two nights of straight kayaking in the ocean followed by one night at a resort. This trip sounds like hell to me, but I'm not deducting points for that. In fact, the one positive thing I'll say about the movie is the rest of the film all takes place on the first day - the only thing that could have made this movie worse would be if they had an additional 20 minutes of watching these duds kayak for two full days!

So Protagonist has been traveling since the murder, she didn't even stick around for the funeral or trial, as her other sister, Annie, points out (why do I know everyone's name but the main girl? Maybe she's the only one whose name isn't shouted by other characters at any point??). They get ready to head on their trip and Jody (basically team leader) specifically points out the two kayaks Lisa and Annie should take as the less experienced kayakers because those kayaks are "easier to get out of" ??? They look identical to the other kayaks except they are bright yellow. But remember the important point here - that Annie and Lisa need special kayaks because they have less experience!

They're on the ocean for a while and go diving (except Protagonist who is now afraid of water because her sister was drowned in the tub) when Annie thinks she sees a shark. Jody kind of brushes it off because most sharks will leave people alone. Then, they all agree they should head to an island to cook a fish they caught for lunch. Jody and Protagonist, for some reason, leave Lisa and Annie behind to head to the island to start cooking! Remember who the least experienced kayakers are?! Yep, they were just left in the middle of the ocean to talk about sharks for a few minutes then slowly make their way back. They are pretty far apart (and VERY far behind the other two) when Annie gets knocked off her kayak by the shark. After a fashion, Lisa notices Annie's not doing so well and goes back for her but this dang shark knocks her out of the kayak too, then he eats her! (RIP Lisa!) This, Jody and Protagonist notice so they come back and help Annie get situated. They care about Lisa's death for all of two seconds before they realize there are kids on the beach! Jody tells Protagonist to stay with Annie so she can race to the shore to help the kids - why ANYONE needs to "stay" with Annie our in the ocean instead of everyone just heading back to the beach, I don't know! 

So one child, Winston (his mom yelled his name a bunch when she noticed the shark) makes it unscathed by Girl Child (whose mom doesn't care enough to yell her name so I don't remember it) isn't so lucky and gets a nasty bite on her leg. It seems like a critical emergency! Unfortunately, these two moms and their kids have been ditched on this shitty little island by their husbands who are on a fishing trip and won't be back for several days!!! The good news is, there's another nearby island with more people who have cell phones. Our "heroes" decide they have to rush there to get help for the kid. I say rush, but none of their actions in this movie suggest time is of the essence (except for the fact that Annie sometimes yells this at Protagonist, who doesn't really want to go back in the water). They end up tethering the two remaining kayaks to a very small and crappy motorboat the island women were left with to stabilize it or something? They are about halfway to the island - which must have taken HOURS judging by the speed at which they are motoring (I cannot stress enough how SLOW they are moving. In real life, the girl would have bled to death by now!) when things start to go south. The motor of course goes kaput, and also the boat has a leak? Don't worry about that though, it only matters sometimes, when they remember it, but mostly it has no effect on the story except to suggest they don't have time to dick around, even though (a) they already have a ticking clock scenario with the little girl who has a bad shark bite and (b) they do nothing BUT dick around!!! 

After arguing about the motor for like ten minutes they tentatively decide to paddle and I'm not kidding when I say this is the most ineffectual paddling I've ever seen! Luckily for them, they don't have to paddle long before stopping so Annie and Protagonist can have it out over her absence the past nine months, because damnit Annie lost a sister too! Protagonist finally lets go some of the guilt she's been feeling over her sister's death, and I don't know that she should??? I mean, Jody tries to say "she never told anyone, so how could we have known?" but Jody witnessed Cath being verbally abused and just shrugged it off? When she says she should have done something, I agree with her! She should have!

Anyway none of this matters because Shark is back! He chomps up the boat a bit and knocks them into the water, he sort of bites Annie but it doesn't go through her vest. This shark is really all over the place - I feel like a shark that size would really have to be trying to only barely nip somebody! Protagonist can now think clearly now that she's let go of her trauma and she realizes the shark will NEVER leave them alone! She says they have to take the fish they caught earlier, tie it to an anchor, tie THAT to a kayak, drag THAT behind their boat, and then when the shark goes for it, this will somehow drown him. Anything to get out of paddling, huh Protagonist?! 

After a lot of time has passed (the light changes around so it's hard to tell how much time - surely the girl is dead by now - but enough time so that Jody and Annie are like "he's gone, we should... ugh... get back to paddling maybe?!"), but then the shark takes the bait and the plan works (after their boat almost gets taken under because they stupidly tied the bait kayak to their boat)! The kayak gets sucked under the water and is just gone and the shark is too! NOW is the time to paddle, as Protagonist suggests. But wait! Shark ain't dead! He's back and he's mad as hell! He sasses them a bit, dislocates Jody's arm, and is just a general see-you-next-Tuesday, so Protagonist and Jody decide they need to trap him in a net and drown him - Protagonist REALLY wants to drown this shark, y'all. 

The plan works! They catch him in the net they are just all dangling over the side of their boat and somehow, in maybe the dumbest thing to happen in this stupid movie, Annie ALSO falls into the net! How this happens, I'm not really sure - she was holding part of it, and it's not like she just gets tangled - she is like fully in there with the shark. Protagonist drops the machete they had this whole time and so she has to overcome her fear of diving to get the machete and stab the shark, ending his reign of terror once and for all. There's a bit of a fake out where it looks like Annie drowns, just like poor dead Cath, but she coughs up the water once she's out of the net, so she's all good! Oh, and the girl survives, as we see in a facetime call later while they are dedicating a rock to their fallen friends on the beach. Hilariously, this call lasts about five seconds and gets cut off when the kid starts trying to talk about how she's doing. 

This movie was boring, and the characters were all idiots which would have been fine if the movie didn't want us to think they were smart. It was bad. Normally I enjoy movies where more than one character survives, but with this one I wanted the shark to win!

Because I can't stop myself, here are some ways they could have improved the movie:

1. Don't have Affleck show up at the beach at the beginning! A bruise and "my boyfriend might not let me do this thing I wanna do" are things you could see as being signs of intimate partner violence after the fact but wouldn't raise much suspicion ahead of time. This would have allowed Protagonist to feel guilty for not seeing it but it would have made more sense for her to let this go later on in the movie, because that wouldn't have been enough to raise suspicions. There is no excuse for her not getting involved when she actually first-hand WITNESSES her sister being abused!

2. Don't have the girl getting bit as their motivation to get to the next island. Have one of the main characters bit and bleeding, so they need to get her help by getting her there ASAP. Bleeding also gives the shark an actual reason to follow them rather than the reason just being because if the shark doesn't stalk them, there's no movie. 

3. Have them actually hurry??? I think maybe they didn't want to paddle in the kayaks so they didn't attract the shark, but like there was no reason for them to use the motor at such a slow speed. Sharks attack things they think are food - a kayak, or a person? Sure, I'll buy that! A damn motorboat going at full speed? Nope! They did not give off ANY sense of urgency in any of their actions (or acting), so if they don't seem worked up about it, why is the audience supposed to?

Okay that's all I've got. I don't remember much of The Reef but it certainly wasn't as bad as this and I would say is worth watching if you like the genre. If you want to watch a shitty shark movie that's actually fun, try Atomic Shark (2016).