Movies
Revisiting the Surprise Hit ‘47 Meters Down’
This summer belongs to aquatic horror, and the reigning king of aquatic horror – the shark- is ready to take a bite out of the box office with 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. Swimming into theaters on August 15, Uncaged follows four divers who find themselves in a world of trouble when they enter the territory of the deadliest species of sharks while exploring a submerged cave system. If the trailer is any indication, director/co-writer Johannes Roberts is upping the shark-induced terror in a major way over his 2017 sleeper hit 47 Meters Down. To prepare for its release, we look back at Roberts’ unnerving shark horror film that started it all, and its unique journey to box office domination.
In the summer of 2017, an indie thriller featuring a pair of sisters trapped in a shark cage 47 meters below the ocean’s surface quietly released into theaters. Just like the silent apex predators featured within, that shark thriller took a major bite out of the box office and caught everyone by surprise. 47 Meters Down became one of the biggest sleeper hits of the year, and its sequel is poised to attack the box office very soon. Yet the road from production to release was long and twisting; if not for an eleventh-hour rescue, the reception of this film would’ve been dramatically different.
Directed and co-written by Johannes Roberts (The Strangers: Prey at Night), 47 Meters Down was a small budget affair shot mostly in a water tank in Basildon in the UK. Exteriors and the gorgeous clear waters were filmed in the Dominican Republic. The small cast revolved around Mandy Moore, just before her turn in the Emmy-winning series This Is Us that would catapult her back in the spotlight, and The Vampire Diaries’ Claire Holt as the ill-fated sisters Lisa and Kate. Matthew Modine (Stranger Things, Full Metal Jacket) appeared in much smaller capacity as the captain of the shark-diving boat.
At the script stage, Bob Weinstein’s Dimension Films picked up U.S. distribution rights to the film. But their deal never included any details or requirements for theatrical release. Thus, August 2, 2016, was set for home release. But a string of underperforming films and a failed TV sale for Dimension meant not as much money to support the home release. Even when a positive test screening indicated the film could do well in theaters. In an even more curious move, Dimension Films retitled the film In the Deep, a title that had once belonged to 2016’s The Shallows. As the release date loomed near, DVD review copies were sent out under this title.
Everything changed when a new distributor entered the picture, one that believed in the theatrical release capabilities of the product. Entertainment Studios entered weeks of discussions and negotiations with Dimension, finally closing a deal on the very day In the Deep hit shelves. The DVDs were pulled from shelves, the release canceled, and the title reverted back to 47 Meters Down. Entertainment Studios was committed to a theatrical release, which meant waiting until June of 2017.
It was a gambit that paid off in a big way. By the time the film did see release, Mandy Moore had become a bigger sell thanks to This Is Us and The Shallows proved sharks could be a huge draw in theaters. The $5-6 million-dollar feature opened to $12 million the weekend of June 16, 2017. Not huge, but not too shabby at all for the low budget film. But then, the following week it rose up the ranks. Any drops were surprisingly minimal. Cut to a month later, and 47 Meters Down amassed $42 million in domestic gross. It’d become a sleeper hit, and one of the highest grossing indie films of the year.
A tale of two women fighting for survival against sharks and narcosis at the depths of 47 meters took a simple concept and turned it into around 90-minutes of thrills and chills, including one of the biggest jump scares in recent years. It’s fitting that the behind the scenes trajectory of turning this little indie into a sleeper hit is just as full of adventure. Now, Roberts has returned to unleash the sequel, presenting an even more terrifying scenario that sees four women unwittingly entering into the territory of deadly sharks when diving in a claustrophobic labyrinth of submerged caves.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged arrives in theaters on August 16, 2019.
Found footage movies rely on immersion and a particular kind of suspension of disbelief in order to scare viewers, so it stands to reason that playing along with the “kayfabe” of it all is necessary for these movies to be effective. However, despite being something of a purist when it comes to in-universe recordings, I’ve come to accept that traditional productions can benefit from the occasional injection of found footage thrills.
For instance, Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation makes genius use of the analog gimmick in order to trap us in the titular rooms alongside our main characters before effortlessly switching back to a more cinematic language. In honor of these dynamic films that manage to combine the best of both worlds, today I’d like to share six other hybrid horror movies that successfully incorporate found footage into their scares!
For the purposes of this list, “hybrid” horror movies are defined as any flick that shifts between diegetic recordings and traditional filming techniques for a significant amount of time (or at least for pivotal scenes).
As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own hybrid favorites if you think a particularly freaky one was missed.
With that out of the way, onto the list!
5. The Last Broadcast (1998)
Internet critics may have overstated the influence that Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler’s The Last Broadcast had on The Blair Witch Project, but the found footage subgenre still owes a huge debt to this underrated piece of avant-garde filmmaking. However, while the movie sets itself up as a documentary about the disappearance of a group of cryptid-hunters attempting to track down the Jersey Devil, things take a darker and much more grounded turn towards the final act.
I won’t get into details in order to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that the jarring shift in perspective actually helps to sell the idea that everything we’ve seen before the finale was an attempt at using filmmaking to manipulate the public perception of a “real” incident.
Not bad for a movie with a $900 budget!
4. Cam (2018)
When you consider just how much the internet affects our daily lives, it’s strange that we don’t see Screenlife elements pop up in more movies these days. For instance, Isa Mazzei & Daniel Goldhaber’s highly underrated Cam only works as a freaky parable about online sex-work because it masterfully balances Madeline Brewer’s intimate moments with highly immersive segments within cyberspace.
While one might argue that the entire film could have been produced as a Screenlife experience, the hybrid approach allows the filmmakers to explore our main character’s life beyond the screens – with the duality of modern human existence actually becoming a recurring theme in the story.
3. Banshee Chapter (2013)
Most of H.P. Lovecraft’s popular stories were told in the epistolary format (where the text is presented as an in-universe compilation of letters or personal notes), so it makes sense that a spiritually faithful adaptation of his work would incorporate elements from the modern-day equivalent to epistolary fiction – found footage!
That’s why Blair Erickson’s Banshee Chapter is such an effective scare-fest, as this hybrid adaptation of From Beyond -retold through a conspiratorial lens as it references MK-Ultra and even secretive numbers stations- immerses viewers in a mind-bending tapestry of Cosmic Horror that blurs the line between fiction and reality.
2. The Deep House (2019)
The underwater setting does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s The Deep House, with the film being especially uncomfortable if you’re already scared of tight spaces and being deprived of oxygen. However, even the universally unsettling elements of the flick only work because the POV often shifts into claustrophobic footage courtesy of our main characters’ GoPro cameras.
Telling the story of a couple of YouTubers who encounter a haunted house at the bottom of an artificial lake while vacationing in France, The Deep House’s first-person exploration sequences contain some of the film’s scariest moments. In fact, I’d argue that the movie didn’t even need ghosts, as becoming trapped in the titular House already sounds like a fate worse than death.
1. Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
My personal favorite instance of filmmakers successfully managing to combine traditional cinematography with POV filmmaking, Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, is proof that the two formats can co-exist if the right story comes along.
After all, what better way to conclude a mockumentary all about reality getting increasingly more cinematic than by ditching the found footage gimmick altogether during the finale? Not only does this shift in presentation work on a conceptual level, but it also elevates Behind The Mask into a proper Slasher, which is probably why we’re so excited for that long-overdue sequel!
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