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Open Water
Lions Gate Films


3.8

based on 38 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 74 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for language and some nudity

Starring Blanchard Ryan, Daniel Travis, Saul Stein, and Estelle Lau

Based on true events, Open Water follows an American couple on an island holiday that turns into an ordeal when they are left behind on a scuba expedition.

GENRE(S):	Drama \| Suspense/Thriller
WRITTEN BY:	Chris Kentis
DIRECTED BY:	Chris Kentis
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: December 28, 2004 Video: December 28, 2004 Theatrical: August 6, 2004
RUNNING TIME:	79 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Without doubt one of the scariest, creepiest, gut-churningly unsettling pictures to come along in ages.

100

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Worth a dozen "Blair Witch Projects," with much more harrowing psychology and pithy dialogue. It's a bone-chilling plunge into no-holds-barred storytelling.

100

San Francisco Chronicle Carla Meyer

The nagging desire to help these people underscores the involvement of the audience in this superbly told story. You can almost taste the saltwater, and the fear.

100

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

In spirit, Open Water reduces us to children peering through our fingers, waiting for the horrid deliverance we're not quite sure we want to see.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Rarely, but sometimes, a movie can have an actual physical effect on you. It gets under your defenses and sidesteps the "it's only a movie" reflex and creates a visceral feeling that might as well be real. Open Water had that effect on me.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

The ending -- a more devastating surprise than "The Village" could manage -- caps eighty sweat-job minutes of imaginative, jolting suspense.

Premiere Aaron Hillis

Open Water may not be a pristine or complex suspense thriller, but you'd be hard-pressed to find anything else as terrifyingly potent in such a tiny package.

Variety Ronnie Scheib

A tour-de-force thriller that deftly transforms its low-budget limitations into spectacular assets.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

Rarely have the dangers of drifting apart been given such a visceral and genuinely upsetting emotional wallop.

New York Magazine Peter Rainer

Terrifying precisely because it doesn't go in for cheesy shock tactics and special effects. (Those sharks are REAL.)

Chicago Reader Andrea Gronvall

Superlative chiller.

Portland Oregonian Marc Mohan

A fascinating experiment in both filmmaking technology and narrative style, but one that can be counted a success only in limited ways.

New York Post Megan Lehmann

While immersed in the horror of their plight, you might forget to breathe.

USA Today Mike Clark

There's more terror than entertainment here, though. I've seen a lot of movies in my life I couldn't wait to see end; this may be the first good one.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The year's most unsettling movie experience - and in this case, that's a very good thing.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

It offers genuine scares and chills without the self-aware, packaged feel of many horror/thriller films.

Chicago Tribune Sid Smith

A slow drip, but one all the more intense for its Gothic minimalism and its underlying parable of naturalistic determinism: It's no fun to fool with Mother Nature.

Los Angeles Times Kevin Thomas

An expertly made suspense thriller based on an actual incident, but on a visceral level it's about as much fun as watching someone pull the wings off a butterfly.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Could develop a cult following. But it is hard to envision repeat viewings or any great number of people willing, even vicariously, to undergo the couple's ordeal.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Kentis and Lau succeed in doing what all filmmakers worth their salt strive to do: They make us care about their characters.

Wall Street Journal Joanne Kaufman

Open Water, which was made for $130,000 -- and seemingly without special-effects assistance -- proves you don't have to have a big budget to have an audience on the edge of its seat.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Open Water is a stunt, one you either buy into or not.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Unlike "Jaws," Open Water isn't much for traditional popcorn-movie scares. Instead, the movie is more interested in depicting the gradual deterioration of its protagonists' sanity, and how that affects their relationship.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

The actors are unknowns, but Ryan does a lot with her little downturned mouth. There are as many shades of anxiety as there are shades of blue in the sea, and Ryan manages to find them all.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Liam Lacey

The movie is also banal in ways that are irritating and second-rate.

Empire Dan Jolin

This isn’t your average against-the-odds survival story.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

The sharks are scary, and the ocean is vast and indifferent, but the most effective parts of Open Water, which is ultimately too modest to be very memorable, evoke a deeper terror, one that can chill even those viewers who would never dream of putting on a wet suit and jumping off a boat.

Dallas Observer Luke Y. Thompson

It's moderately compelling drama, but also fairly static stuff, image-wise.

Film Threat Don R. Lewis

Every hour that ticks by your stomach drops a little more as the outlook becomes more bleak.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The film's dispassionate examination of the shifts in Susan and Daniel's relationship as they drift from irritation to barely suppressed panic is at least as nerve wracking.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Bill White

By no means a good movie. Although based on a true story, the mathematical error that led to Daniel and Susan's predicament is handled with such dramatic slovenliness that the viewer is apt to be confused as to what actually happened.

Slate David Edelstein

This is not to say that it is bad writing, shooting, or acting: It would need to be more ambitious to be bad. It is simply the most mundane sort of behavior presented in the most mundane sort of way.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Writer-director Chris Kentis has dreamed up an ingenious premise, but he botches its execution. Every once in a while, the film stumbles upon a twist that ratchets up the tension, but then haphazardly discards it.

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

I longed for something - anything - unexpected to occur. What I wouldn't have given for Wilson, the "Cast Away" volleyball, to float past with his bloody "face" print grinning at the pair!

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

Open Water is just one tedious scene stretched out to feature length. It's terrifying all right, but only for what it says about the extents to which a couple of hungry actors and a bullish director will go to turn themselves into overnight celebrities.

Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov

Ultimately, it's 79 minutes of footage of a pair of petty, pretty people freaking out over having to go to the bathroom in their wetsuits, and in the end you find yourself rooting for the sharks.

Village Voice Dennis Lim

Open Water is simply a stunt--hopelessly literal-minded and cheap in every sense.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

These dramatic shortfalls make us merely worried that two human beings are in danger, but not two compelling souls. There's your missing ingredient, the human X-factor.

The average user rating for this movie is 3.8 (out of 10) based on 74 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Tom M. gave it a9:
I've always believed that after reaching a certain age or level of maturity, the thriller-chiller genre becomes tired and contrived for most of us, monotonously offering the movie-goer the same old wine in the same old bottle. Not this one! "Open Water" delivers big time. It is genuinely scary and captivating, especially when one discovers that the film is based on an actual occurrence. Not only that, the soundtrack is also intriguing, to say the least.

L.T. Chen gave it a2:
I can't believe the critics' rave reviews! Yeah, it was free of the usual Hollywood gimmicks; yeah it puts you right in the flippers of the doomed swimmers; yeah it was realistic. But it has ZERO story. Films shouldn't be realistic just to be realistic. Films tell stories. There was nothing in this film I couldn't imagine in my own head or read in a paragraph.

Pat C. gave it an8:
While momentarily disappointing, this is a powerful movie simply because it refuses at every opportunity to resort to Hollywood gimmickry. A series of innocent oversights, none fatal in themselves, results in a diving couple abandoned in the open ocean. They undergo a Blair Witch kind of process as they try by force of will to avoid conversion from casual observers of the food chain to hapless participants.

eric s gave it a10:
Not great, but better than 99% of "horror" movies out these days, and it deserves credit for that. The realism and clever filming is what makes this movie, as opposed to endless blood and gore. I can't help thinking that the people who call Open Water boring are only entertained by pointless, idiotic movies like House of 1000 Corpses, making them by definition shallow idiots.

J. F. gave it a9:
Its understandable that many people did not like this movie. The low-budgetness is distracting at times, and you do come into it expecting a thriller/horror/shark movie... but it's really the immature ones (like you people that say "Very boring!") who will come out of it saying that it sucked. You have to be able to appreciate intimate and low-key scenes, which this movie is full of. You have to be able to let yourself go and put yourself in the situation that the characters are in. If you can do that, and forget about the low-budget camera, you'll see what a great movie it actually is.

Fabien L. gave it a2:
Bad home movie combining bad video, bad actor, bad story, bad everything. Quite consistent.

Tony B. gave it a4:
If you're willing to accept how the couple gets into the predicament they are in and how nobody on that boat realizes they are missing, Open Water will probably work for you. The best thing about it is its uncompromising and unexpected ending.

Open Water Lions Gate Films

Open Water
Lions Gate Films