A Shark Movie With Real Jaws
Aug. 20, 2004 -- Here's a tip if you're planning on swimming with lethal, 11-foot sharks: Feed them well, and they might not think of you as shark food.
In Jaws, Steven Spielberg built a mechanical monster that terrified moviegoers in what would become the modern-day model of a big-budget, summer movie blockbuster.
Nearly three decades later, just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water, filmmakers have found a much simpler way to conjure up deep-sea terror: They simply threw bloody chunks of tuna into the water, attracted a swarm of 40 to 50 large sharks, lined the actors' scuba suits with chain mail, and hoped for the best.
The result — Open Water, which opens nationally today — speaks for itself. Audiences in New York and Los Angeles, where the movie is already in theaters, have been raving about the rugged filmmaking and bone-chilling authenticity.
"We would throw bait in the water to get the sharks to move," says writer-director Chris Kentis. "But once too many pieces were in the water, the sharks would get really worked up, and then the actors would have to get out of the water."
In the film, based on a true story, a young couple on a scuba-diving vacation are stranded at sea when their group charter boat leaves them behind at the diving site.
First they're annoyed, bickering with each other. Then the fish circle and start nibbling, and who's to blame no longer matters.
Kentis and his wife — producer-cinematographer Laura Lau — decided to make the movie after reading the tale of Tom and Eileen Lonergan, who were abandoned at the Great Barrier Reef in 1998 and never seen again.
"When I sat down to write the film, I wasn't interested in portraying the real people involved," Kentis says. "I did no research on them. I didn't want to represent their relationship or their lives, out of respect for their privacy and because it was not pertinent to the story."
