Up to their necks in chilling 'Open Water'

BY JAN STUART | STAFF WRITER

August 6, 2004

(R). A young couple goes scuba diving and is stranded in the middle of the ocean with sharks, jellyfish and other gremlins of the deep. Director- writer Chris Kentis expertly presses all the right buttons in a deliciously agonizing thrill ride that reminds us why we go cuckoo for roller-coasters and parachute dives. 1:19 (language, some nudity). Lincoln Square, Angelika Film Center and AMC Empire 42nd Street theaters, all in Manhattan.

Beachgoers in the summer of 1975 were startled to come upon a chain of ocean bathers as far as the eye could see, all stopped in their tracks eight feet from the shoreline, afraid to venture any further. That was the year of "Jaws."

If even a fraction of the numbers who attended Spielberg's landmark blockbuster make it to the low-budget "Open Water," beaches this summer may be lined with would-be divers queuing up to return their scuba equipment.

Do we need another shark thriller? Do we ever - particularly if it is as crafty and uncompromising as "Open Water," a gut-clutching plunge into primal-fear territory that is no less unsettling for having been made on a flipper and a prayer.

Would that sharks were the only things the young married couple at the center of Chris Kentis' 79-minute film had to be concerned about. Pretty, blond and unprepossessing Susan and Daniel (Blanchard Ryan and Daniel Travis) leave behind their workaday stresses for a scuba outing and find themselves stranded in the middle of the ocean. There they bob, cold and anxious, doing their best to comfort one another while an assortment of menacing sea creatures gathers to keep them company.

It's one of those high- concept setups so ingeniously simple, you wonder why no one has attempted it before. What makes Kentis' protagonists so interesting is that they are so stunningly uninteresting, like a couple in one of those black-and-white horror quickies from the 1950s, or Barbie and Ken dolls doing a "Survivor"-style TV stint.

Faced with an extraordinary challenge, Susan and Daniel do and say exactly what most of us would in their position. They wisecrack with strained bravado, they mutter about calls of nature, they make an absurd stab at parlor games to pass the time. They're almost too banal to be in any real danger - and that's where Kentis catches us off guard.

In lieu of special effects, Kentis achieves nerve-rattling suspense with a canny blend of silence and tight shots. To the credit of Ryan and Travis' underplaying, their characters grow in dimension as their plight becomes more dire.

"I don't know which is worse, seeing them or not seeing them," says one of them after spying a shark.

Amen to that.