This triple feature revolves around sea scares, but they’re all totally different in plot, making for some nice variety. But is variety always the spice of life? Let’s find out.
THE LAST BREATH (2024)
The hubby and I are always ready for new shark movies when the summer nears, so we got an early jump on it with this cliché take on the subgenre.
We meet a group of friends looking to party in a tropical location. One guy has recently helped the late Julian Sands discover a sunken WWII battleship.
He hasn’t told anyone about it, but after lots of uninteresting talk between the characters as they party on the beach, he decides to take his friends diving.
The group becomes trapped down in a warship by a shark, with one room having an air pocket they can hide out in safely in between trying to escape.
And yet they still keep getting attacked. And they also conveniently end up in an underwater room full of like 70-year-old medical supplies when one of them needs to be stitched up.
The initial appearance of the shark had such an opportunity to be an amazing jump scare, but bad CGI made it a blip on the jump scare radar instead. The shark scenes are all CGI, so once you get past that, you just have to use your imagination to pretend it’s real.
The group does all the typical things wrong, but at least there’s plenty of bloody water. The two best moments include a scene in which one guy almost makes it safely back to the boat, and the scene in which the final girl fights back and takes on the shark head-on.
DEAD SEA (2024)
Even though it has a terrifying concept, this film is totally thriller lite. The events that unfold are so simplified that there is little in the way of suspense.
Our main girl and her female friend and two male friends go jet skiing, and there’s a really bad accident. One of the two guys simply disappears, the other guy is badly hurt.
For a moment it feels like this is going to be an Open Water situation, for we naturally get shots of sharks in the water. Luckily (or not), the trio is picked up by a sexy fisherman.
Almost immediately they are all held captive, and this turns into an organ harvesting and human trafficking movie. It’s definitely the most chilling aspect of the film, but it all just plays out so basically with no hitches in the escape plan.
Even the final rescue is hokey and buttoned up tight. Funny thing is that the simplification of the survivors’ trajectory comes down to them essentially making no mistakes…which goes to show you that scary movies would be pretty boring if characters didn’t do stupid things.
Meanwhile, the hot fisherman is shirtless for the final battle, so that’s a plus. He also pulls a Silence of the Lambs at one point by sending supplies down to his prisoners in a basket.
THE DAMNED (2024)
This is one you should probably check out if you like those unsettling period pieces like The Witch, where it’s all about the vibes rather than the visuals.
In terms of horror eye candy, the most you get in this movie is essentially all contained within the screenshots I’ve included here.
In a fishing village near the shore, the residents are contending with a brutal winter when they see a ship crashed on the rocks in the distance.
They argue over whether or not to go save any possible survivors. This is when the savagery of olden days is on full display. Actually, pretty much nothing has changed in today’s “civilized” society.
Anyway, after a boat trip to the ship that turns barbaric, the villagers place all the dead bodies that wash up on shore into coffins.
After that, the guilt begins to eat away at them and they start suffering visual delusions, getting violent, going crazy, and even killing themselves. It is pretty much up to the viewer to decide if they are actually experiencing anything or suffering from mass hysteria.
