Joe recommended Open Water whole heartedly, but others, like some of these one-star reviewers at Amazon, had equally strong reactions against it.
I first learned of the events the movie is based on in Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country, where he described the events of Thomas and Eileen Lonergan’s disappearance during a dive in the Australian Pacific. The similarity between these true events and the movie’s events likely ends there.
But the notion of being left alone at sea was scary enough for director Chris Kentis, who played it out as a story of personal drama rather than special effects awe. Thing is, when the sharks do appear, they’re real.