| This is the last of our Terrors from the Deep Monster Monday flicks. His film is a little different from the others we’ve looked at as it’s based on a true story of a couple who got left behind on a dive trip due to a faulty head count. Of course the events after that are completely fictionalized since the couple was never found, but it does a good job adding a humanistic element ot the horror of this situation – man’s incompetence. |
In the real life story, five crew members on board the boat failed to recognize the head count was not accurate. It took two days for someone to notice the missing couples gear on the boat which led to a massive search and rescue operation, but for naught. As a thriller, this film also is different. First there’s the setting which is literally the vastness of the open sea. These two people manage to keep their wits about them and even joke while they wait for the rescuers. I have been on many dive trips and I assure you, if I had been left behind, I’d not have held it together nearly as long as they did.
On one particular dive trip in the Red Sea, the captain of the boat rang a bell and announced, “Sharks! Sharks! Everybody IN the water.” My daughter immediately looked up at me and said, “Daddy, that doesn’t sound right.” So there I was gearing up and she’s looking at me with this sad look in her eyes and I said, “What’s wrong, Baby?” To which she replied, “Daddy, you’re fat they’ll come after you first!” It was the only time I ever thought of myself as a buffet.
Anyway, the literary term I’d like to link to this film is the term Allusion. An Allusion is an indirect reference to a place, a person, an event, an idea or thing of cultural significance. There’s not a lot of detail or explanation as the reader/viewer is expected to know the allusion and get the connection. It's a kind of literary shorthand.
In Open Water, at the end when the boat driver finally finds the missing couple’s bag on board, he removes their dive license and we see for the first time their last names. Her name is Susan Watkins and his name is Daniel Kintner. These are allusions to the film Jaws. The first person eaten in the beginning of the film was the girl swimming naked. Her name was Chrissie Watkins and the little boy who is eaten on the raft was named Alex Kintner. Nice touch.
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