Is there a more tried-and-tested horror trope for guaranteeing views than having attractive women in swimsuits be chased around by a predator of some sort? Yet again this trope has worked for Netflix, with one of their biggest films this week being The Descent, but with sharks.
A sequel you likely never would’ve guessed, 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, has swum past its rivals with absolute pace on the Netflix charts, somehow settling in the top ten with no real context as to why. The shark horror film looks, sounds like, and is exactly what you’d guess it’d be.
Strangely, 5.8 million hours were logged for this sequel nobody asked for on Netflix, speeding past the likes of True Spirit, Vin Diesel’s forgettable actioner Bloodshot, and Jurassic World. Perhaps Netflix audiences have just been in the mood for transparently trashy B-movies which flopped with critics.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged follows a group of women doing the classic The Descent thing of going in way over their heads and exploring an underground entrance into an ancient Mayan city off the maps. What could possibly go wrong here? Lots and lots of sharks. More sharks than you could poke a stick at, even.
Within the rich vein of shark horror films, it’s nothing particularly surprising or original, but it’s just about entertaining enough to see you through its minimal runtime of 90 minutes on the dot. Of potential interest is that Uncaged stars Corinne Foxx, sister to Jamie Foxx of Django Unchained and The Amazing Spider-Man fame.
47 Meters Down: Uncaged is available to stream on Netflix.