Hans Horn sequel to Chris Kentis’s sleeper hit, Open Water, is a film which battles with itself, positing diametrically-opposed scenarios and sentiments while doing so in an equally perplexing technical manner. What remains is a cinematic dilution which leaves its audience indifferent yet–to Open Water 2: Adrift’s credit–unoffended.
A reunion of old high school friends goes terribly awry when an innocent prank leaves the group stranded. Like the Coleridgian scenario of salvation within arm’s reach yet infinitely unobtainable, the dilemma is exacerbated by Sarah (Mattea Gabarretta), the infant of Amy (Susan May Pratt) and James (Richard Speight Jr.), being left onboard as her cries pierce her parents’ hapless ears.
It is common knowledge that audience identification and sympathy, if not empathy, is oftentimes key to creating a convincing work of horror or suspense. As such, throughout a large portion of Horn’s work, added by distanced characterization, viewers remain apathetic to the collective who are left strained after forgetting to deploy the ladder from, not their boat, as Dan (Eric Dane) reminds us countless times, but their yacht. A fair amount of the horror audience demographic is comprised of middle class viewers, thus, the misfortunate and pain of the upper 2% fails to evoke anything outside a pleasant sneer from its audience. Granted, we learn that the privileged scenario is modestly justifiable (though the visual affirmation of such remains nonetheless withstanding), yet this is disclosed after the halfway mark, which leaves little time, retrospectively or otherwise, for Horn to make us care.
However, though the premise might seem inane in summary, it is surprisingly and convincingly presented as not only plausible, just arguably forgivable. Furthermore, Horn must be given credit for remaining headstrong to the degree of cleverly inserting a newborn which, as soon as we realize that the individuals involved have royally screwed themselves, beckons our sympathies for what remains is a tentative, innocent death at the hands of ignorance, greed, and arrogance.
Not as tightly plotted as its forerunner, Open Water 2 quickly becomes tedious with its rote, annoying characters, that is, until midway through the feature when Horn ups the ante by creating and sustaining the tension without resorting to the ever predictable shark attack. Impressively, what we are left with is Man verses Nature, the icing on the cake being that the latter is not malevolent but, worse yet, Cranianly indifferent. Granted, the group’s plight is compounded by the inevitable defense of citing blame, thus Horn shifts the antagonistic focus from Nature to Man himself, but–though potentially intriguing–such is presented in a manner which is almost as indifferent as the environment.
To make matters worse, Bernhard Jasper’s cinematography is frequently, jarringly inconsistent. While aboard, wide-angle shots are issued ten-fold, as if the filmmakers are assuring themselves that the audience is aware of a budget which allowed for the rental of a yacht (which becomes paradoxical when Dan makes a confession concerning his yacht). After everyone goes overboard, the camera then attempts to compensate by remaining irritatingly close to its actors without aesthetic justification. Christian Lonk’s editing is equally unbalanced as its patchwork nature digresses to the gratuitous slow mo shot before laboriously giving way to cut-frame after cut-frame.
Ultimately, Open Water 2 is an exercise in patience as it allots time for its audience to pose its own questions for nothing of consequence is posited from the story proper. Case in point, I had ample time to contemplate why a boat would be engineered with such scope and girth so as to inhibit its functionality in times of emergencies. Just as humanity is surrounded by buildings which, if evacuation is imminent, would cause the death of its inhabitants (c.f. the forced suicides during 9/11), the film’s yacht and the activities literally surrounding it still granted me time to philosophize upon the vertical growth of a population that is not naturally inclined to such altitudes.
And it would seem that other critics also found time to quietly think to themselves. Yes, Horn places his viewer in a position which makes one consider how he or she might opt to get back onboard but, of course, such is just trivialities at the end of the day. Sadly, we spend the greatest portion of our time shaking our heads in shame as the elitists onscreen stupidly suspend, not the lighter females within the collective, but the bulky males by potentially life-saving strands, while other avenues of salvation egregiously metamorphose into snafu’s at the hands of the group. If the director’s agenda was to didactically bombard us with the notion that humanity is stupid, he could have more readily, and perhaps more intriguingly, filmed an exposé set in Wal-Mart.
Never insulting yet never engaging, Han Horn’s Open Water 2: Adrift does just that as it merely carries its viewer along while, at times, begging that various characters see a quick end due to outright annoyance while, at others, merely forces benign indifference regarding what is occurring or what is to follow. In short, Horn’s picture could have indeed been a lot better but it could have also been a lot worse.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
