Andrew Traucki has proven he’s great at creature features – see the 2011 shark thriller “The Reef” and two “Black Water” crocodile films (2007, 2020). So when he makes a fourth one that’s not up to par, it’s tempting to say he’s phoning it in.
Maybe that’s not quite fair. One thing in “The Reef: Stalked’s” (2022) favor is that it remains as serious as those previous Australian films. And at its high points, it’s suspenseful in the tradition of ominous music and watery shots that don’t reveal a shark but could at any moment. It’s probably just out of the frame.
After the first “Reef,” it became fashionable to make shark films cheesy on purpose, but Traucki – who both writes and directs (as he did on the original) – is more interested in showing nature as it truly is: scary.
“The Reef: Stalked” (2022)
Director: Andrew Traucki
Writer: Andrew Traucki
Stars: Teressa Liane, Ann Truong, Kate Lister
Slightly more than shark bait
As always, Traucki gives his characters some backstory and traits, rather than making them mere shark fodder. “Stalked” is hurt by its Lifetime-movie setup, though. Nic (Teressa Liane) was unable to stop her sister from being drowned in a bathtub by her nutso husband. Now she’s terrified of the water.
Although that water connection is emphasized by jerky flashbacks of the sister’s drowning – as imagined by Nic – I can’t help but wonder if comes in place of a shark attack. The first film was notably – but still effectively – sparse. As sequels must do, we get more shark action here – eventually – and most of it is passable (again, a lot of nature footage is used to show the prowling predator).
But some of the CGI is bad by modern standards, and I suspect Traucki wasn’t super-confident that he could film a believable shark attack without pulling the camera away pretty quickly.
The cast is OK, but they generally choose to project fear in a low-key manner. Maybe something over-the-top would’ve been warranted for this sequel that’s unconnected to the original plot. Saskia Archer as Annie, either a friend or another sister of Nic (the script is unclear), has a low-wattage star quality, being awkwardly cute like “Cobra Kai’s” Peyton List. Two more 20-something gals are along for the ride on this three-day kayak trip to some offshore islands.
Not as remote
The first film’s sense of being stranded in the middle of nowhere isn’t present here, as most of the time we can see land nearby. “Stalked” finds a way to stand out a bit, though, when it turns into a smaller-scale “Jaws” for the final act.
Spielberg famously used the floating yellow barrels to create suspense when the mechanical shark didn’t work, and — as a bonus — it makes logical sense in the attempt to catch a shark. The gals in “Stalked” – stuck on a motorboat with a couple kayaks lashed to it — use a similar method on a smaller scale. Their proactive approach to killing the shark rather than fleeing it is good on paper, but it should’ve led to something more aggressive and intense on screen.
Whether this sequel was always intended to be shallow or whether the magic simply doesn’t strike twice, “The Reef: Stalked” is not as good as the original. It stops short of turning nature into a joke, though; those are waters Traucki will never dip his toe into.