Recommended. This movie is the scariest movie I have seen since Blair Witch Project. Why? Because it is based on a true story and has that same documentary style realism to it. Any movie that makes you think of yourself in the situation depicted and forces you to re-evaluate your own life and the value of what you are spending your time and energies on is a valuable tool for the conscience. Open Water does this for me. As you watch these two stranded out in the middle of the ocean, forgotten, vulnerable and reassessing their own lives surrounded by sharks, you can’t help but reconsider your own. They cherish the value of normal mundane existence on the brink of their own destruction and struggle with the psychological effects of impending death. And the tragic irony of providence is that our very lives may hinge on the trivial mistakes of others, something that can only be coped with if one trusts God, otherwise we would go crazy at the “unjust” and tragic monster of chance destroying us all. Hopelessness, meaninglessness and despair is the only possible conclusion in a chance universe. It’s a brilliant low budget high concept film with a profound underlying premise that it is only in the face of the jaws of death that we wake up to the precious treasure of life. My one big complaint is a completely gratuitous nude scene in the early part of the movie.
