The Shallows was one of the surprise hits of the summer. The film made over $100million on its slim $17million budget, rekindled our collective faith in the human vs. nature horror genre and was one of the few non-sequels to make a splash in crowded waters.
Its refusal to dive down to the lowest common denominator, the direct focus and the realistic portrayal of survival drew a line in the sand: that summer films need not be over complicated, star-laden nor part of an episodic franchise juggernaut to succeed.
The summer of 2016 saw the usual glut of remakes, reboots, sequels, (p)requels and it’s a rare film that rises above the marketing-driven chaos to make its mark. The Nice Guys was an endearingly over the top buddy cop comedy strengthened by fine performances of a tight script. Fede Alvarez’s Don’t Breathe was a masterpiece of bottling tension and giving genre tropes a good kicking (something The Shallows also does very well) – these are the film that offered us something different.
That we had The Shallows sharing a summer with the delightfully bonkers Swiss Army Man is a nice embellishment on the theme. In among new versions of Tarzan, The BFG, Independence Day, the latest issues of the comic-books properties Jaume Collet-Serra’s lithe, direct film made us afraid to go back into the ocean, but made it feel safer to step into uncharted cinematic waters.
Perhaps the reason we needed to be afraid of going back in the water is that the previous few years have seen monster movies thrown together with their schlocky disaster movie brethren. Sharknado, Two-Headed Shark Attack, a Jurassic shark, a ghost shark, sand and snow sharks – it’s fair to say that we’re way past the moment where the genre jumped the..well, you get the idea.
Jaws made its $7million budget back in its opening weekend, as did The Shallows. The social media reach of its star, combined with some canny media partnering (such as the link with Discovery Channel’s Shark Week), certainly helped the film overcome that all-important financial hurdle so early on. But the word of mouth – that it was a solid film, one which refused to strap on the facetious trappings of the zeitgeist – is what carried this one into more comfortable financial waters.
The isolation and overwhelming odds of Blake Lively’s character can be compared to Sandra Bullock’s fate in Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity, and both films share a paired down narrative to their credit. Lively has a lot to do here. The role necessitates a brute physicality which not only increases our attachment to the character of Nancy, it provides an important undercurrent of vulnerability related to her situation, rather than her gender.
Though the film was sold on images of the bikini-clad Lively the close focus on the actress doesn’t wane when she sustains her considerable injuries. It’s a simple directorial decision: if all you want to do is look at an actress in a swimsuit we’re going to give you an image you’re not used to seeing. It reinforces to us that it is a person up on screen, torn flesh and leaking blood. It works perfectly with the story and something that we should see more often.
It also adds to the film’s determination to refuse the obvious. Nancy needs no-one but herself; she is not looking for a saviour nor does the initial conversation with the two male surfers teeter over into lasciviousness. It is a crucial element of the film that makes us want her to succeed. Much like Joss Whedon’s premise for Buffy, the blonde swimmer who ventures too far out (on her own – importantly) is usually nothing more than fish food. Not so here. The star’s sexual identity is not in play here. She is only seen as a piece of meat by the shark.
While the summer didn’t have quite the same imbalance which handed us Alice Eve in her underwear in Star Trek Into Darkness there is still work to be done. The barely-concealed sexist reaction to the all-female Ghostbusters team this summer is testament to that. While director Paul Feig and the stars of that film had to address the backlash directly, The Shallows doesn’t care for your prejudices, it is what it is and we need more of this in the big summer films.
The use of technology within the film also contributed to its success. Collet-Serra’s film is necessarily stripped to the bone. Key to the film’s effective nature is the total isolation of Nancy and through a neat use of the projection of video-calling her world is expanding through her calls to her family yet we never leave the beach, nor the sea once we’re in deep water.
The use of a GoPro to convey elements of the story is not a new trick, yet it reinforces the realistic nature of the narrative as we get an up close shock of the approaching horror. Rather like the opening scene in Jaws gave us a nasty taste of what was to come, this disjointed footage keeps the story focused on Nancy – this time it really is personal. Visual gimmicks were few and far between. We had our bite of family backstory, but the film would have worked perfectly without it.
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This particular use of found footage is another example of using an over-familiar horror trope to reinforce the terror, all the while keeping the spotlight on Nancy’s plight. It’s all about her. We don’t need a dozen hapless teens to be slaughtered in darkened school corridors to feel afraid for the remaining victims, Collet-Serra understands that the fear is of an irrational being, Terminator-like it is inability to be reasoned with. There’s no wasted time on backstory (the shark didn’t need to be abandoned by its father, or humiliated at the school prom), nor is there much in the way of MacGuyer-esque plans to survive.
Collet-Serra talked in a Little White Lies interview on this subject, “Visually, things go into very movie-ish territory, but you go with her and it’s like she’s earned it – and then to try to teach a lesson, or to be ironic… it would be going too far in a movie this simple.” That the film never reveals the name of the beach (La Playa del Tiburón Realmente Enorme con Dientes for example) is a graceful sidestepping of the usual nod to the audience, and it greatly enhances the power of the film.
And the simplicity is what works so well. The spiraling characters arcs of this year’s Marvel and DC blockbusters were of huge detriment to the films themselves. Characters lumbered the exposition around a crumbling landscape of gaping plot holes, dropped character moments and ugly spin off springboards. It’s doubtful we’ll see a Seagull vs. Shark: Shallows 2 any time soon, but as long as we see more unashamed genre films determined not to bow to commercial pressure The Shallows will have done its work.
The Shallows is out on Blu-ray, DVD and Digital from today, the 5th of December.
