47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED (US/UK - 2019) Directed by Johannes Roberts. Written by Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera. Cast: Sophie Nelisse, Corinne Foxx, Brianne Tju, Sistine Stallone, John Corbett, Nia Long, Davi Santos, Khylin Rhambo, Brec Bassinger. (PG-13, 90 mins) Rescued from straight-to-DVD oblivion just a week before hitting retailers in 2016 under the title IN THE DEEP and released in theaters a year later, 47 METERS DOWN proved to be a surprise summer 2017 hit for the upstart Entertainment Studios, who bought the film from a cash-strapped Dimension Films when the latter didn't see any potential in it. That was just before THE SHALLOWS ended up being a sleeper success in 2016, convincing Entertainment Studios CEO and veteran comedian Byron Allen that this cheap acquisition was a smart investment. He was right, but 47 METERS DOWN has been the only thing keeping Entertainment Studios afloat after a string of box-office duds, including the terrible German-made social media horror pickup FRIEND REQUEST, the ridiculous THE HURRICANE HEIST, and the godawful Keanu Reeves sci-fi thriller REPLICAS (HOSTILES and CHAPPAQUIDDICK got good reviews, but played to mostly empty theaters). 47 METERS DOWN was an accidental hit for the hapless Allen. Nobody needed a sequel but desperate times call for desperate measures. And for our sins, we've got 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED.
Director and co-writer Johannes Roberts returns, and to his credit, there's no idiotic twist ending like the one that completely ruined its predecessor and sent a palpable wave of resentment rippling across the theater. Roberts has yet to make an all-around front-to-back good movie, but he has his moments, as anyone who saw last year's THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT can attest. A largely by-the-numbers reboot/sequel to the 2008 hit, THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT is pretty forgettable except for a standout scene at a swimming pool that makes brilliant use of Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart." It's an instant classic sequence that's masterfully assembled and uses sight and sound so effectively that it's almost enough to trick you into thinking the movie is better than it is. Roberts tries that same technique again here, with a long tracking shot through a narrow underwater cave that uses Roxette's "The Look" before segueing into an eerie cover of the Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun." It's not quite as effective as Bonnie Tyler, but this seems to be Roberts' schtick (Status Quo and Aztec Camera also make needle-drop appearances). No cast members from 47 METERS DOWN return, though there is a shot of a school named "Modine International School for Girls," likely included as a wink-and-a-nod to Matthew Modine, who got a free vacation to the Dominican Republic by taking a small role in the first film.
Set in a posh, scenic resort town in the Yucatan Peninsula, UNCAGED opens with teenage Mia (Sophie Nelisse) being bullied by some mean girls and getting no help from her stepsister Sasha (Corinne Foxx, Jamie's daughter). They've both been relocated after their parents--Mia's dad Grant (John Corbett) and Sasha's mom Jennifer (Nia Long)--have gotten married and marine archaeologist Grant has a long-term job opening up a long-hidden cave system housed in the ruins of an ancient Mayan city that's been underwater for centuries. Sasha talks Mia into bailing on a glass-bottom boat tour of the area to head to a secret cove with Sasha's besties Alexa (Brianne Tju) and Nicole (a debuting Sistine Stallone, Sly's daughter), where Grant and his two research assistants have conveniently left some diving equipment. They decide to just explore the first cave and head back up, but as soon as someone says "What's that?" and ventures off on their own, their fate is sealed. The girls are soon joined by a screaming fish (don't ask) and then by a blind, albino great white shark, part of an undiscovered species that's spent centuries evolving in total darkness...that is, until Grant opened up a cave and they got through. Sightless but with every other sense heightened, the shark is joined by others, repeatedly sneaking up on and cornering the girls into tight spots in caves and rock formations, and stirring up enough silt that they're pretty much as blind as the sharks when it comes to finding a way out. And their oxygen tanks are running low...
47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED is a lesson in stupidity and poor decision-making, starting with no one thinking to use a guide line, but the rest is mostly on the part of Stallone's Nicole. She's the one who dismisses safe diving protocols, she's the one who sees something mysterious and swims toward it, she's the one who knocks over a large totem and stirs up all the silt, and she's the one whose selfishness and frantic impatience end up making the situation worse and leading to the deaths of two more people, so much so that her fate actually serves as a crowd-pleasing moment. The concept of the uncovered city and the cave system make for an appropriately creepy setting, but it eventually becomes impossible to tell what's going on, with one sequence such a dark blur that it's several minutes before you can even ascertain who just got killed. What this really is at the end of the day is a JAWS-inspired retread of Neil Marshall's THE DESCENT. The ghostly-white albino sharks probably sounded good on paper, but poor CGI renders them lacking in onscreen execution, and Roberts shows absolutely no shame in blatantly cribbing the most memorable scene in the 20-year-old DEEP BLUE SEA when a potential savior is taken out right in the middle of his inspirational speech. On the basis of it not having a completely, infuriatingly shitheaded twist ending, 47 METERS DOWN: UNCAGED might be an ever-so-slight improvementover its predecessor, but it's still the kind of disposable, streaming-ready B-movie that you won't even remember by the time you get to the parking lot. However, Roxette is still stuck in my head...
THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT (UK/US - 2018) Directed by Johannes Roberts. Written by Bryan Bertino and Ben Ketai. Cast: Christina Hendricks, Martin Henderson, Bailee Madison, Lewis Pullman, Damien Maffei, Emma Bellomy, Lea Enslin. (R, 85 mins) Announced almost immediately after the release of THE STRANGERS and in various stages of development for a nearly a decade, THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT is the long-gestating follow-up to the 2008 home invasion hit that's equal parts sequel, reboot, and remake. Ten years is an eternity in the horror genre (to put it in perspective, the first PARANORMAL ACTIVITY was still a year away), and THE STRANGERS, itself a sort-of riff on Michael Haneke's 1997 downer FUNNY GAMES and the 2006 French film THEM (ILS), was an influence on later similar thrillers like YOU'RE NEXT, THE PURGE, and HUSH. The original's writer/director Bryan Bertino hasn't had much success in the ensuing decade: his terrible follow-up film MOCKINGBIRD played like a found-footage mash-up of Rob Zombie and THE STRANGERS and went straight to DVD in 2014, and 2016's THE MONSTER got some acclaim but, like THE STRANGERS, had a terrific first half diminished by an uneven second. Bertino is onboard as a writer and producer here, with directing chores being handled by Johannes Roberts, whose 47 METERS DOWN was a surprise hit last year. Roberts is probably a better director than Bertino, and throughout this film, he demonstrates a knack for effective shot compositions and has clearly studied the masters--there's De Palma split diopters, there's some Argento reds, there's some shout-outs to the works of Tobe Hooper and John Carpenter, and one neon-drenched sequence in a huge swimming pool that's undoubtedly the highlight of the film. But I've rarely been as back-and-forth after watching a film as I am with THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT. In the ten years since THE STRANGERS, one of the go-to tropes of the horror genre has become the incessant retro '80s fetishizing, particularly the use of throwback, synth-driven scores (YOU'RE NEXT, the MANIAC remake, IT FOLLOWS, STARRY EYES, etc) and the use of pop songs ranging from iconic to kitschy. Roberts really leans hard on that retro feel, with an opening sequence set to Kim Wilde's "Kids in America" before the title appears onscreen in a near-identical replica of the STRANGER THINGS font. That kind of reverence for a beloved era of horror was charming and cool and fun when it started becoming a thing six or seven years ago (perhaps this trend can actually be traced back to Daft Punk's score for TRON: LEGACY), and it has generated a resurgence of interest in that style of music, with Goblin and Tangerine Dream-inspired bands like Zombi and S U R V I V E, and even John Carpenter now releasing albums and going on tour with a live band. But everybody's doing it now, and with that one-two punch less than five minutes into the movie, I was already dismissively sighing, feeling grouchy, and waiting for Larry Fessenden and/or Maria Olsen to show up.
They never did, but THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT is buoyed by some unusually strong performances for a belated horror sequel. With rebellious teen daughter Kinsey (Bailee Madison, who looks like a young Katie Holmes) becoming too much of a handful after an unspecified incident involving two other girls, mom Cindy (Christina Hendricks) and dad Mike (Martin Henderson) decide to send her to a strict boarding school. Forcing elder son Luke (Lewis Pullman, Bill's son) to ride along, they embark on the two-day road trip to the school, deciding to stop off for the night at an off-season trailer park campground run by Mike's uncle. Sporting a Ramones tee and chain-puffing smokes without actually inhaling, Kinsey is an intentional stereotype of the sullen, brooding teen, and would rather sulk off on her own than play cards with the family. Mike and Cindy send Luke after her, and while the kids are gone, there's a knock on the door. So begins the incidents familiar to fans of THE STRANGERS: a loosened porch light bulb obscuring the face of a young woman asking "Is Tamara home?" followed by increasingly aggressive knocks on the door, land lines cut, dumb decisions, and cell phones smashed as a sure sign that someone's already in the house. While out walking and talking, Luke and Kinsey find a trailer with its door open and discover the mutilated, dead bodies of Mike's aunt and uncle and are greeted by a hooded figure with an ax waiting outside for them. Both parties (Mom and Dad, Luke and Kinsey) make a run for it, eventually meeting and splitting into two different groups (Mom and Kinsey, Dad and Luke) as the titular trio--Man in the Mask (Damien Maffei), Dollface (Emma Bellomy), and Pin-up Girl (Lea Enslin)--taunt, stalk, and off them one by one.
There's a few genuinely suspenseful sequences throughout, and Roberts uses space and the background very effectively in the way he has The Strangers and their creepy masks materialize out of darkness or enter the frame from an unexpected place. But the retro '80s thing just gets to be too much for its own good, so much so that in the final act, it's difficult to tell if Roberts is making a slasher movie or an infomercial for NOW That's What I Call '80s Power Ballads! Why are The Strangers suddenly '80s pop superfans? Why do they drive around in beat-up pickup blaring Kim Wilde and Mental As Anything songs? In one scene, Man in the Mask sits there with one of the dying family members in a crashed car and keeps searching radio stations until he hears Wilde's "Cambodia" playing. Why? It's exactly like one of the killers in YOU'RE NEXT sitting quietly next to a dead victim (played by...wait for it...Larry Fessenden!) while Dwight Twilley's "Lookin' for the Magic" plays on repeat. It's bad enough that The Strangers are suddenly engaging in the old horror movie staple of evil figures snarking it up in the sequels (as decreed in the Freddy Krueger Amendment, aka the Chucky Resolution) by having Pin-up Girl appear out of the darkness to crack to Kinsey "We're just getting started!" but now they're DJs at '80s-themed office party who need obscure British pop songs to accompany their killing sprees.
This idea actually works in the truly inspired swimming pool sequence--a minor classic of its kind and likely the only thing genre fans will remember about this--set to Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart," which drifts in and out as the characters go under and emerge from the water. And if it was just that, it would've been fine, but then the long, drawn-out finale with multiple endings is pointlessly set to Air Supply's "Making Love Out of Nothing At All." Is this a sequel to THE STRANGERS or Roberts hitting shuffle on his iPod and just seeing what happens? That's the conundrum of THE STRANGERS: PREY AT NIGHT: there's some good stuff here but its fixation--obsession, really--with '80s nostalgia, with the overbearing synth and the '80s singles comprising a soundtrack in search of a movie, just gets grating and dumb after a while and almost completely derails it. This film exists in some kind of bizarro world where it thinks it's paying homage to the '80s but goes so overboard with it that it's paying homage to the homages. Isn't it a little premature to be making hero-worship tributes to things like IT FOLLOWS, STRANGER THINGS, and the filmography of Adam Wingard?
47 METERS DOWN (UK/Dominican Republic - 2017) Directed by Johannes Roberts. Written by Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera. Cast: Claire Holt, Mandy Moore, Matthew Modine, Santiago Segura, Chris J. Johnson, Yani Gellman. (PG-13, 89 mins)
Opening almost exactly one year after last summer's better-than-expected Blake Lively shark attack thriller THE SHALLOWS, 47 METERS DOWN had an unusual journey to the big screen. Shot in 2015 as 47 METERS DOWN, the British/Dominican Republic co-production was acquired by Dimension Films, who retitled it IN THE DEEP and planned on releasing it straight-to-DVD/Blu-ray in August 2016, probably figuring it could fool less-savvy Redbox customers and Walmart and Best Buy impulse buyers into thinking it was THE SHALLOWS. A week before the planned street date, Dimension abruptly cancelled the release after closing a deal to sell the film to the upstart Entertainment Studios, a TV production company looking to branch out into movie distribution and owned by none other than veteran comedian and syndicated talk show host Byron Allen, last seen hosting COMICS UNLEASHED when you woke up at 3:30 am and realized you left the TV on. Allen reinstated the 47 METERS DOWN title, gave himself an executive producer credit (he's one of 38 credited producers), and sat on the film for nearly a year before making it Entertainment Studios' inaugural multiplex offering. Review copies of IN THE DEEP had already been sent to media outlets and DVD/Blu-ray shipments had already arrived at stores the week before the August 2016 release date. Dimension recalled the shipments, but certain retailers--Target, in particular--broke the street date, so a handful of physical copies, under its interim IN THE DEEP title, were inevitably sold and have since turned up on eBay as collector's items, even though the film hasn't officially been released until now. It's good timing on the part of Entertainment Studios: shark movies are perfect summer fare, and while co-star Mandy Moore's movie career wasn't exactly on fire two years ago when this was made (she's not even top-billed), she's enjoyed a significant resurgence thanks to the huge success of the NBC series THIS IS US.
Lisa (Moore) and her younger sister Kate (Australian actress Claire Holt of THE VAMPIRE DIARIES and its spinoff THE ORIGINALS) are vacationing in Mexico, with Kate going along as a last-minute substitute after Lisa got dumped by her longtime boyfriend for being "too boring." The sisters couldn't be more different--outgoing Kate is the life of the party while the more conservative Lisa is overly cautious and hesitant about everything. Kate convinces her big sister to live it up and take a chance after they meet Benjamin (Santiago Segura--not to be confused with the popular Spanish actor of the same name) and Louis (Yani Gellman), a couple of nice local guys who talk them into an off-the-books cage-diving excursion, chartering a boat captained by the Dude-like Taylor (Matthew Modine getting a paid vacation to the Caribbean), who lets tourists go five meters down in a shark cage to get up close and personal with the plentiful number of great whites inhabiting the waters. Benjamin and Louis go in without incident but while Lisa and Kate are in the cage, the cable frays and the boat winch breaks off, sending them to the floor 47 meters down. At a depth too far down to communicate with Taylor on the radio, with limited oxygen, sharks swimming all around the cage, and certain death from the bends even if they get out and try to ascend to the surface too quickly, there's no way out in the amount of time it will take the Coast Guard to mount a deep sea rescue.
Had director/co-writer Johannes Roberts stuck to this simple, intense premise, 47 METERS DOWN would be a front-to-back winner. The score by tomandandy is terrifically effective, the CGI sharks look surprisingly convincing, and Roberts takes a page out of the Spielberg playbook by not showing too much of them. Smart move. It's an exemplary nail-biter with convincing performances from Holt and Moore and for about 2/3 of its running time, it's looking like we might have a new gem in the shark attack subgenre. But that's before Roberts decides things are going just a little too well, forcing him to call a time-out so he can promptly shit the bed. Since the mid-to-late 1990s, when the shocking finales of films like THE USUAL SUSPECTS and THE SIXTH SENSE dazzled audiences (and you could maybe even go back to 1991's SHATTERED to see where the trend really began), third-act twists, no matter how absurd, have been become so commonplace that more often than not, they aren't even surprising anymore. That's not to say good ones don't still happen, but Roberts (STORAGE 24, THE OTHER SIDE OF THE DOOR) isn't a skilled enough filmmaker to pull it off. It's telegraphed in a line so verbosely clunky that the only way you could miss it is if you were in the restroom. Why does a shark movie need a twist ending? They're sharks, not Keyser Soze. A good filmmaker executes a twist and leaves the audience buzzing and going back and replaying the events to see how cleverly the plot was constructed and realize just how you were manipulated and played. The twist of 47 METERS DOWN leaves you feeling like you just got your chain yanked for the last 80 minutes and you leave the theater only to find Roberts keying your car. I guess there's a fine line between executing a masterful plot twist and just being a dick, and 47 METERS DOWN has one of those twists where the wave of audience resentment upon its revelation is palpable. And speaking of being a dick, there's no need for the onscreen title of this film to be JOHANNES ROBERTS' 47 METERS DOWN. How much sack does it take for the director of STORAGE 24 to pull that move? Pump your brakes, JoJo. You think you're John Fuckin' Carpenter?
DVD packaging for the cancelled 2016 release of 47 METERS DOWN
