It happened a few years ago. I dived with sharks for the first time, and probably the last. I allowed myself to disregard the safety instructions because I was sure I would be fine. I entered the cold water, put my head in the water, and then my whole body. And then it happened. I was trapped. I didn’t know how to get back up, and I didn’t see anyone beside me. Even the instructor is gone. Complete shock. What’s worse is when a huge, hungry-looking shark swooped towards me. I screamed, but no one could hear me scream in the water, so it didn’t help. I struggled to breathe, feeling like the air would run out any second.
After what seemed like an eternity, when I finally managed to struggle out of the water, I heard a blood-curdling scream. “What the hell are you doing?” the guide asked as everyone around her laughed, including one fish that somehow managed to scream in the water. “You were now about 10 seconds in the area of the baby dolphins, 47 cm underwater, and you started screaming like crazy. Come back to our group and take the snorkel and diving suit. We’re about to start.”
What Are The 47 Meters Down Movies?
Horror films have tried to play with as many fears as possible in recent years. If a few decades ago it was enough to have a movie with a shark to raise the viewers’ anxiety level, today I feel that they try to capture as many fears as possible in an hour and a half. Because why make a survival movie about a shark if you can add to it a plane crash, which is stuck under the sea level right on the edge of a cliff, when the air is about to run out, and the characters are busy in stupid arguments (thank you very much, “No Way Up”). The “47 Meters Down” movies were not quite as bombastic, but they combined some of the biggest fears that anyone who dives has. Get stuck under the sea’s surface, at a depth of 47 meters, surrounded by hungry sharks.
How did they manage to make some pretty fun movies out of it? We will find out by reviewing the “47 Meters Down” movies in order, from the first movies to the third, which we may get in the following years.
How Many 47 Meters Down Movies Are There?
47 Meters (2017)
47 Meters Down Cast And Plot
“47 Meters Down” is not the first survival movie to include a fight with sharks in the middle of the sea, but it certainly took it in some exciting directions. The film was directed by Johannes Roberts, a British director whose resume includes primarily horror films: from horror films that almost no one has seen (such as “Darkhunters,” “Forest of the Damned” or “Road Kill”) to sequels, some of which are not bad at all, such as “The Strangers: Prey at Night” from 2018 (the sequel to the excellent “The Strangers”), “Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City.” (2021) or “V/H/S 99”, which if I counted correctly is the fifth film in the anthology film series The horror (perhaps more, because there were also spin-offs). Roberts wrote the script for “47 Meters”, along with Ernest Riera, and managed to cast some pretty impressive names.
“47 Meters Down” is about two sisters who go on vacation in Mexico. The eldest sister, Lisa (Mandy Moore, “This Is Us,” “A Walk to Remember,” “Midway”), is a rather boring girl whose partner recently broke up with her because she is boring. When the wilder younger sister Kate (the attractive Claire Holt, who we remember as Rebecca from “The Vampire Diaries” and “The Originals,” and also from someone who was probably jumped and scared a lot in the record-breaking movie”The Messengers 2″) finds out, she invites her out for an unforgettable evening of drinking, dancing, and men, because she is wilder. They meet two guys who invite them to go diving with them. The highlight: seeing white starfish up close from a cage in the middle of the sea.
If you have seen some survival thrillers in the middle of the sea and read the previous paragraphs, you can probably understand what is happening. After the cage broke apart, the two girls quickly found themselves in the closed cage at 47 meters below sea level. Since we are in a horror movie and not on the Nickelodeon channel, we cannot invite the “Paw Patrol” or other people. There are a few guys up there, including a captain of the boat (Matthew Modine), but they seem useless, as is usually the case in these types of movies.
The two sisters are in the depths of the sea, with part of the exit key blocked. They can’t swim up quickly because it could cause Decompression Sickness (DCS) – a disease caused by changes in the solubility of inert gases in the body’s tissues due to the changes in the ambient pressure (and you, I know this without checking on Wikipedia! No, I didn’t check, What are you walking about?), which can cause death among other things due to the accumulation of nitrogen bubbles in the brain. Oh, the oxygen is running out, and the girls start hallucinating, and sharks are around. From that point, we embark on a journey against time.
Here is “47 Meters Down” trailer:
47 Meters Down Review
We must say to the film’s credit that it does manage to create a sense of tension and anxiety for the fate of the heroines, which is not entirely obvious (“No Way Up,” for example). Both actresses do a pretty good job, although the dialogues don’t always serve them well, and there are some thriving scenes of tension – mainly around the loss of time, by the way, and less about sharks.
At the plot level, there are a few problems here, including things that need to be clarified scientifically. The ending of the film is surprising but a bit annoying. Perhaps because in recent years, and probably before, this “47 Meters Down” plot twist has been used in too many films, for example, a movie about two girls who this time get stuck at the top of a tall communication tower and not in the heart of the sea, or a girl who sails to the heart of the sea with a man from her dreams and discovers that the journey turns into a nightmare.
47 Meters Down Box Office Stats
The truth is that “47 Meters Down” was intended to be watched on home platforms, but following the quite positive reactions in the test screenings, they decided to screen it in the cinema. This decision was probably the right because the film – with a modest budget of about 5 million dollars – managed to bring in more than 62 million dollars worldwide. Reviews were average to fair, with approximately 53% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, a score that was slightly higher than the audience rating. But in today’s Hollywood, all these variables explain why the decision to develop “47 Meters Down” movies seems easy.
47 Meters 2: Uncaged (2019)
We continue with another film about two sisters trapped under the sea in Mexico, written and directed by Johannes Roberts (yes, along with Ernest Riera). Even so, there are a few differences compared to the first film. The cast, for example, does not include names that are too familiar. But most of the cast is good-looking, so you can go with that.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged Cast And Plot
“47 Meter 2: Uncaged” deals with two sisters, step-sisters this time, whose relationship is anything but positive: Mia ( Sophie Nélisse, who played the young and annoying version of Shauna in “Yellowjackets”) and Sasha (Corinne Foxx, the daughter of Jaime Foxx) attends a new school, but Sasha didn’t help Mia when another student pushed her into the campus pool (women!).
The sisters embark on what is supposed to be an innocent cruise that includes watching lovable sharks, which the father (John Corbett) expects will bring them together. In the end, the two decide to change direction and explore a lost underwater Mayan city, together with the pushy student Kathryn (Brec Bassinger, who, despite her name, is not Kim Basinger’s daughter), Nicole (Sistine Stallone, who is their home of Sylvester Stallone and former model Jennifer Palvin), Brianne Tju (I have no idea who her parents are) and more.
Take a look on “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” trailer:
Where Is The Logic? (Or: 47 Meters Down Uncaged Fish Scream)
If you’ve already seen some survival thrillers in the middle of the sea, and you’ve also seen the previous film, you can probably understand what’s going on. Very quickly, the girls find themselves inside an air pocket in an underground tunnel, surrounded by sharks and waiting for the rescue. And then all sorts of illogical things begin to happen. The girls talk to each other in the water with nothing attached to their ears. This way of communication looks weird to me, but maybe I don’t know how sound in the water works. And if I remember correctly, there was also a fish screaming in the water (!), probably to create a jump scare.
Here is a short description of this weird “47 Meters Down: Uncaged” fish scream scene from “Movie Amigos Podcast”.
In short, logic is probably not the most vital point in this movie. In the process, there’s a pretty big death toll because that’s what it’s like when you’re dealing with oxygen loss, eddies, a maze of caves, collapses, sharks, and bloody screaming fish.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged Review
It would be best not to take “47 Meter 2: Uncaged” too seriously. Although the first “47 meters” is far from a masterpiece, the sequel is behind, in my opinion, in almost every aspect, such as plot, acting, tension, or script logic (did I mention there is a fish that screams?). Despite this, he somehow manages to be enjoyable and entertaining, even if the laugh is sometimes on it. There is a little tension about the question who dies in “47 Meters Down: Uncaged”, and the answer to such question is always fun in horror movies.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged Box Office Stats
“47 Meters 2: Uncaged” was produced with a bigger budget of about 12 million dollars. When you see the film, it’s hard to understand why, but I estimate the producers wasted most of the budget on finding a screaming fish (sorry!). It grossed more than $47 million, and reviews were primarily negative. By the way, the audience liked this film more than the critics.
47 Meters Down: The Wreck In on It’s Way
If you like survival movies against sharks, above or under water, you will surely be happy to hear the following news: a third movie in the “47 Meters Down” franchise is already in the works. The film, which will be called 47 Meters Down: The Wreck,” should begin filming in the coming months, with the plan being to release it on screens in the summer of 2025.
The film will be directed by Patrick Lussier, based on a script by – you guessed it – Johannes Roberts and Ernest Riera. Lussier is a fascinating director who proved his place in the world of horror when he managed to survive a movie with Amber Heard (“Drive Angry” from 2011). In between, he also directed quite a few horror films. It starts with several sequels to well-known horror franchises, such as “The Prophecy 3” with Christopher Walken, three Dracula films (“Dracula 2000”, “Dracula 2” and “Dracula 3”), and also a sequel to “White Noise” which is not bad at all. He also made the remake of “My Bloody Valentine” from 2009, a massive miss film, and the very fun “Play Dead” with Bailee Madison and Jerry O’Connell in 2022. In short, this director has yet to be responsible for masterpieces, but he surely knows the job.
Surprisingly, “47 Meters Down: The Wreck” will not deal with sisters this time but with the relationship between a father and his daughter, who, to improve their relationship, set out to investigate a shipwreck in the middle of the sea. They will likely have to face all kinds of dangers above and below the water, such as sharks or a lack of oxygen, but along the way, they will probably discover the importance of the family unit, learn to know each other, and so on. We are still determining who will star in the film, but based on the casting of the girls in the previous movies, we might get a real father and daughter here.
Is there anything to look forward to, in the continuation of “47 Meters Down” movies? If you ask Johannes Roberts, the answer is definitely yes. ““47 Meters Down: The Wreck is the perfect continuation of our shark-filled franchise. This film will once again have moviegoers terrified and on the edge of their seats”, said Johannes Roberts .”We can’t wait for audiences to be trapped underwater with us again. 47 Meters Down: The Wreck is going to be the biggest, most-intense film of this franchise.”
All that’s left for us to do is wait and see if we get a fun third movie that stands out in the red ocean (literally) of shark movies in recent years or if the franchise continues to sink into the depths.