Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Hayley Easton-Street
Starring: Hiftu Quasem, Lauren Lyle, Nicole Rieko Setsuko, Ellouise
Shakespeare-Hart, Natalie Mitson
15 years ago it felt like a new zombie movie was released every week. Now
we seem to get new shark movies on a weekly basis. Hell, we've even gotten
some movies about zombie sharks! Given how Spielberg's Jaws was such a notoriously stressful and troubled production, it's
ironic that the shark thriller has now become the go-to sub-genre for low
budget filmmakers. Of course, the sharks are all CG rather than mechanical
now, and some are noticeably more CG than others.
The modern shark movie takes two distinct forms: there are "serious"
shark movies like The Shallows and 47 Metres Down, and over-the-top pisstakes like The Meg and the many Sharknado clones. Something in the Water is a product of the first school (no pun intended). What makes this
one stand out in such crowded waters? Not much, aside from bring British.
If you're expecting a shark munching victims in the polluted waters of the
Thames in the manner of the recent Under Paris, you'll be disappointed to learn that it relocates its Brits to the more
shark friendly locale of a Pacific Island.
It's there that friends Meg (Hiftu Quasem, whose Scottish brogue
is the very definition of lilting), Kayla (Natalie Mitson), Cam (Nicole Rieko Setsuko), Lizzie (Lauren Lyle) and Ruth (Ellouise Shakespeare-Hart) gather for the wedding of Lizzie to Cam's brother. The now obligatory
traumatic backstory is detailed in the prologue, in which lovers Meg and
Kayla are harassed by a London girl gang who taunt the couple with
homophobic jibes. Kayla makes the mistake of riling up the gang members,
resulting in Meg suffering a brutally violent attack.
Having ended their relationship in the aftermath of the attack, Meg and
Kayla are none too happy to be reunited, despite the best attempts of
their mates to have them trash out their problems and rekindle the flames
of their passion. Believing a trip to a remote island might help in this
way, the girls find themselves in a life-threatening situation when one of
them is bitten by a shark in relatively shallow waters. Things go from bad
to worse when their boat starts letting in water, their cellphones have no
coverage, there's only one life-jacket, and Lizzie reveals she can't
swim.
Employing essentially the same format as Open Water, i.e. having its protagonists stuck in the middle of, well, open
water, Something in the Water is more survival thriller than monster movie. The shark is but the
most obvious of several obstacles the girls must overcome, along with
fatigue, the elements and their own bickering. There's relatively
little shark action, and even less gore. For a significant portion of the
film we're left watching a couple of characters bob up and down in the
water as we wait for the shark to reappear, and it drags considerably in
parts. Meg and Kayla's backstory ultimately has very little bearing on the
situation at hand.
What Something in the Water does have in its favour is a group of characters that are fleshed
out just enough to feel like real people. While the young actresses are
all attractive, they're not the plastic model types usually cast as shark
fodder in these movies. You could imagine running into this bunch of
lasses down the pub, especially when they indulge in some terrible dancing
to S Club 7's hen night staple 'Reach'. Courtesy of writer Cat Clarke, we get some very British banter between the girls, who never miss an
opportunity to seize on some smutty innuendo. But this chummy (sorry!) camaraderie
disappears once they're plunged into shark-infested waters, and it's
difficult to accept how easily they process losing their friends in such
horrific circumstances. We also get the odd unintentionally hilarious
line, like when one of the girls perishes and Lizzie callously responds
with "She can't be dead, she was supposed to be my bridesmaid." More of
such moments might have made for a more entertaining and less tedious
experience.
Something in the Water is on
UK/ROI VOD now.
