|
Daniel Kintner (Daniel
Travis) and Susan Watkins (Blanchard Ryan) are an American couple
frustrated that their hard-working lives don't allow them to spend much time
together. The last names of the main characters (as revealed on their ID cards)
are the same as Alex Kintner and Chrissie Watkins, two of the shark attack
victims in Jaws.
They decide to pack up and head out on a scuba diving vacation to help
relieve their everyday stress and improve their relationship. On their second
day, Daniel and Susan join a group scuba dive. Some on board their boat express
nervousness about sharks, but the dive instructor dismisses the danger with a
joke. There is a head count, and the passenger total is recorded as 20.
Daniel and Susan get in the water along with the rest of the divers. One man,
Seth, finds that he has forgotten his mask. He gets upset over it and gets
verbally pushy with the boat's crew, but knowing the expectations of safe diving
practices, he begrudgingly stays on the boat. Daniel and Susan decide to
separate from the group while underwater. A woman who is having problems with
pressure equalization returns early to the boat with her partner. There are
already three people back on the boat, so this is recorded by one of the crew as
three "ticks" on their tally sheet. After this tally, Seth asks to borrow the
mask of the woman who just surfaced, and he coerces the woman's reluctant dive
partner into another dive with him. The tally is not changed because the man
maintaining the tally did not see this happen. Half an hour later, the rest of
the group begins returning to the boat, and during that period the tally is
incremented normally as each diver arrives on board. Going by the two earlier
tallies, the total on board comes to 20, though in reality the accurate count is
18. The boat leaves, and although a few belongings of Daniel and Susan are on
the boat, most of the dive group do not know the others beyond their dive
partners, so no one happens to associate the stored belongings of Daniel and
Susan with their absence on the boat.
Soon after the boat leaves, Daniel and Susan return to the surface and look
for the boat. They see a boat gradually receding away in the distance and
believe the group will return in reasonable time for them, as they assume
someone on board would notice their belongings.
Stranded at sea, Daniel and Susan rehash a few old disputes, bicker about the
wisdom of swimming for occasional boats seen in the distance, battle bouts of
hunger and mental exhaustion, and eventually notice sharks circling them below
the surface. Susan is concerned about the sharks, but Daniel tries to calm her,
saying, "Sharks are attracted to wounded fish," and concludes that they should
try to stay calm and not splash around. Soon they are stung by jellyfish, while
several times sharks appear to try to figure out what they are. Susan receives a
small bite from a shark, but doesn't realize it. Daniel notices this as he goes
under to check out the "nipping" feeling she has. He sees that it is a small
fish feeding on the exposed flesh of her bite wounds, but he doesn't tell her
that the wound is a shark bite.
Later, a shark bites Daniel, and the wound begins to bleed profusely. Susan
removes her weight belt and uses it to apply pressure to Daniel's wound. He
appears to begin to go into shock. Susan herself is afraid, telling him to "just
keep breathing." The tight-fitting neoprene wetsuits are apparently keeping them
from fully realizing they are sustaining small bites. That night, during a
strong storm, sharks return and attack Daniel again, killing him.
The next morning, the pair's belongings are finally noticed on the
long-since-moored boat by a crew member. He opens their duffel bag and finds
their scuba certification cards with their photos on them, and suddenly he
remembers the couple and realizes they must have been left out at the dive site
the previous day. A search for the couple is begun in earnest. Meanwhile, Susan,
having held on to Daniel through the night, realizes he is dead and releases him
into the water, where sharks attack him in a feeding frenzy. Susan turns away
from the odd bobbing movement of Daniel's floating body as the sharks tug him
under. After putting on her goggles, she looks under the surface and sees
several large sharks circling her in the water; one seems to dart in her
direction. Susan looks around one last time for any sign of rescue, and seeing
none, she removes her scuba gear, pushes it away, removes her mask, and goes
underwater to drown before the sharks attack.
After Susan slips below the water's surface, a crew of fishermen is seen
elsewhere cutting open a caught shark's abdomen and stomach, finding the
waterproof diving camera and asking off-handedly, "Wonder if it works?"
 Copyright(C) 2007
- 2020. All rights reserved.
|
 
|