THE REEF: STALKED (2022)

THE REEF: STALKED (2022)

Tagline: Your deepest fear will eat you alive

(Horror, Thriller, Sharks Will Eat Your Face) [R]

Note: This movie was not given an MPAA rating, but it would have gotten a [R] just due to profanity. 

You didn’t know her, and you don’t know me. You left. 

9 months after her sister is murdered, Nic her sister Annie and their two friends decide it’s going to be a great idea to go to a remote (but often visited) island and kayak and dive in the ocean. It doesn’t take long before a shark decides it’s lunchtime and starts to try putting these four women on the menu. Nic and the other women must overcome their fears to survive being stalked. 

First off, I have reviewed 43 shark movies if we include this one and if you compare them to other films in general, they are nearly always going to be near the bottom of the ranking in any given year. However, if you like shark flicks like I do, just a shark showing up will keep you watching them anyway. 2022 was freakin loaded with shark movies for whatever reason. I am not sure if someone keeps track of this stuff, but I don’t recall a year where more shark movies came out, than the 7 that came out in 2022.  

Outside of hearing that this sequel to THE REEF was coming out, I really have been hard-pressed to very many people talking about it. I kind of wonder if because when you take out Nic’s flashbacks to her sister getting killed (which contrary to some synopsis posts, she didn’t see, she walked in after it happened), there isn’t much original about this. Like in MANEATER, the girls are pretty close to the island when they are attacked. The acting is janky even though I can only assume these actresses are fairly well-known in Australia. One issue with this one is that it's shot very awkwardly. During a sequence where a young child is attacked, one of the 4 main girls in the film is there trying to warn the kids to get off the beach. They drag this scene out for around 5 minutes it seems and we don’t see any of the other girls around at all. Then suddenly at the end of that sequence, they show up out of nowhere? Seems kind of odd that the camera wouldn’t have panned around at some point to show you the distance between the girl closest to the attacked kid and her friends. Especially since all of them finally started trying to get back to shore. 

When it comes to the performances everything feels very flat. More like the acting you would get if you walked into the breakroom at work and something caught fire in the microwave. It also feels like this was a “stupid decision” decathlon, where the object of these girls was to get eaten. Teressa Liane is probably the best-known actress in this. She has 17 movies and TV shows under her belt, but is probably best known for “The Vampire Diaries”.  Ann Truong is actually a good actress and plays Jodie, but isn’t really challenged to do anything. She is best known for the live-action version of “Cowboy Bebop”. Saskia Archer might have had the roughest outing as Annie, but she gets a pass because this is only her 3 role in anything. Kate Lister is fine as Lisa but gets a lot fewer lines than I would have expected.  

What works in this movie is the shark, and it looks like hardly any CGI was used. You have to hand it to some of these Australian-based films, the acting might not always be there, but at least their sharks don’t look like gifs you would get off the internet or video game graphics. Yes, that is me looking at you Wild Eye Releasing and Brett Kelly Entertainment. 

Overall the end result is very lackluster. It was not as bad as BULL SHARK or SHARK BAIT, but it was still very bad. I have to give this one a 3 out of 7. 

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