Something in the Water - Blu-ray Review

It’s always amusing when someone says “shark-infested waters,” like the sharks have deliberately gathered to be as much as a bother as possible to humans when in fact sharks live in every ocean on the planet. One of the characters in 2024’s “Something in the Water” utters this term fairly early on while complaining that they’ve been brought to “shark-infested waters,” although it’s probably understandable given that she’s due to be married the next day and doesn’t want her wedding to be remembered for dismemberment.

“Something in the Water” belongs with that subset of shark horrors such as “The Reef” and “Open Water,” where, due to an accident of some kind, the characters are left stranded in a stretch of water that just happens to be home to some of the most dangerous species of shark. In this case, it’s a group of friends travelling to the Caribbean where one of their brethren is getting married, in this case Lizzie (Lauren Lyle). With her, there’s the crazy one, Cam (Nicole Rietsu Setsuko), the funny one, Ruth (Ellouise Shakespeare-Hart), the athletic one, Kayla (Natalie Milson), and the quiet one, Meg (Hiftu Quasem).

However, there’s a reason Meg is quiet, which is explained in a prologue where Meg and Kayla, who were in a relationship, are subjected to homophobic abuse from a girl gang while walking through a graffitied tunnel at night. Kayla mocks the girls but it’s Meg who ends up being attacked. A year on, this is the first time Meg and Kayla have seen each other, so it’s all very awkward, even more so when Cam decides to rent out a boat for them to go visit a nearby deserted island so they can abandon Meg and Kayla to sort out their differences. Annoyed, the pair play a trick on the others by pretending they’re back together, but everyone’s joy is short lived when Ruth finds herself in a pool of her own blood after going for a quick dip in the shallows. Panicking, Lizzie drives the boat too fast and ends up catching it on a bit of coral reef and punching a big hole in the side. Everyone must now hold together while they try and make it back to the mainland, especially as the shark is still in the vicinity.

Of course, this is a shark film, so don’t get too close to these characters. Director Hayley Easton Street has played things down and said this is a picture about friendship, and while that’s true, at least three people are eaten by sharks. And these are not “gonna mistake you for my lunch,” sharks, these are very aggressive sharks. Really, the whole film is set up to get Meg and Kayla back together, which apparently they do, because there’s nothing like getting back together via the shared trauma of having your friends eaten alive.

"Something in the Water" is not a particularly good film, whether it’s trying to be about friendship or the horror of being eaten by sharks. There is something to be admired about a story that has no men to interject and save the day, and even the opening attack is girl on girl. This, however, still doesn’t exorcist any problems, which are mainly that it’s not scary or heart-warming. The script is full of cliches, right down to the prologue which is in that oft-used urban setting of a dark tunnel with graffiti all over the walls – a middle-class nightmare. The characters are barely disguised archetypes, and Cam, the “crazy” one, is incredibly annoying down to the constantly wooo-ing.

The main problem is you don’t feel anything. There are moments when the fingers are pointed at members of the group, and yeah, Cam not checking if there was more than one lifejacket before leaving port is a big mistake. Also, because this is a movie about friendship, we’re denied a gory and spectacular death for Cam. Boo. The sharks themselves are CG but the compositing presumably) makes them look artificial and cheap. They’re presumably bull sharks from the brief moments when you get a look at them, which is interesting considering the marketing, including the Blu-ray cover, uses the familiar visage of the great white shark. And they are rarely found in Caribbean waters, except for that incident in 1987.

Audio/Visual

Being a 2024 film, you’d expect for “Something in the Water” to look and sound great, and it does. The handsome cinematography by Niels Reedtz Johansen (“Dredd”) is one of the better aspects of the film and it comes across well here, framed at the 2.35:1 ratio. The effective score by Nainita Desai and Harry Peat is subtle but comes through when necessary, although, as you’d expect in a film like this, the dialogue is sometimes tricky to make out.

The Extras

None. If there were any, they have been gobbled up by a shark.

Final Thoughts

“Something in the Water” is pretty average, as both shark films and wedding disaster pictures go. The film and disc look and sound nice, but there are no extras to speak of, so if you’re that desperate to see it, might as well just rent it.

"Something in the Water" is out now on Blu-ray from Studiocanal