The fear factor surrounding water isn’t given nearly enough credit; without even getting into whatever carnivorous creepy-crawlies lurk beneath the surface, the inky depths, lack of a foothold, and ultimate apathy of large bodies of water truly make it one of the most bloodcurdling settings in the world.
This may be slept on in our day-to-day lives, but the horror genre has proven to be a tad wiser than most, churning out hundreds of great water-based films to drown audiences in waves of tension. And with beach season in full swing, r/horror has taken to rhyming off some of the best aquatic escapades they’ve ever seen.
One user offered up a healthy dose of entertainment on the high seas, including The Shallows, 12 Feet Deep, Bat, their personal favorite The Host, and Black Water, which is not only based on a true story of a 2003 Australian crocodile attack, but also only used real crocodiles to film the movie; could there be a gutsier production out there?
Jaws seemed like too easy an answer for such a list, but on the other hand, perhaps it would be too insincere to not include it anyway.
But it was the original poster who boasted the most impressive list of all, even going against their own rules and listing water-based films that weren’t exactly horror, such as Pirates of the Caribbean.
Water may be terrifying, but perhaps such a factor is softened by our knowledge that sharks are not nearly as aggressive towards humans as many of these movies seem to depict. With that in mind, it’s high time we started a funding a hippopotamus horror movie; perhaps the realism will bring a brand new gravitas to the genre.