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That movie is The Shallows, director Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2016 thriller starring Blake Lively as a medical student surfing on a secluded Mexican beach who is left stranded on a small rock 200 yards from shore when she is attacked by a great white shark. Wounded and facing high tide, she must use her wit and resilience to survive. The movie started streaming on Prime Video on March 1st. The Shallows holds a “Certified Fresh” 79% critic score and ranks No. 5 on Rotten Tomatoes’ list of best shark movies, where Jaws ranks No. 1.
The Shallows Is One of the Best Shark Movies Since Jaws
It’s not a stretch to declare The Shallows a great predecessor to Jaws or even one of the best shark movies ever. The movie excels precisely because it emulates the “less is more” approach of Spielberg’s classic, favoring suspense and minimalism over the over-the-top, poor-CGI shark films of recent years. The movie acts as a contained survival thriller, focusing on the suspense of a single protagonist trapped in a contained location just 200 yards from shore. And similar to Jaws, the shark is rarely shown. The Shallows relies on calculated sightings of the shark circling and lurking beneath the surface to build the anticipation of attack and a palpable tension that is nearly unbearable.
