Director Marcus Adams’ recent action thriller, Deep Fear, follows yachtswoman Naomi (Mădălina Diana Ghenea) as she embarks on a solo sea trip. Originally intending to meet her boyfriend Jackson (Ed Westwick), Naomi’s peaceful three-day sail on ‘The Serenity’ is disturbed when an aggressive storm throws her off course.
As she attempts to navigate herself through unknown territory, she spots two survivors clinging onto remains in the distance. Naomi offers to help when one of the survivors reveals that her brother is stranded in the wreckage. Naomi doesn’t realize that these ‘survivors’ are savage drug traffickers until it’s too late. They force her to dive down to the wreck to recover 350 kilograms of cocaine.
Even the drugs dive goes wrong for Naomi, who finds herself surrounded by a group of great white sharks. At the film’s climax, she becomes the victim of a brutal underwater attack. At the disposal of drug lords and at the center of an apex predator attack, Naomi struggles to make it out alive.
Netflix’s number one movie of the week
Viewers were surprised to find that Deep Fear, which has 12% on Rotten Tomatoes and 4.5/10 on IMDb, has climbed to the top of Netflix’s Top 10. The film received poor reviews in abundance across a range of platforms.
One lengthy review by an IMDb user states, “I would not waste my time with this movie Deep Fear (2023), it was too slow and badly paced for a shark movie, along with it not being interesting or investing in watching.”
“I like shark movies, even entertaining bad ones, but this movie was slow starting, it takes half of the movie to start the main plot, and once the movie ended and the credits started, I was starting to forget about what I just watched.”
Another reviewer, who gave the film 0.5 stars on Rotten Tomatoes, said, “Hands down the worst thing I’ve seen all year. A great watch if you’re in the mood for an absolutely atrocious movie.”
However, one IMDb user was able to take some positives from Deep Fear, saying, “I would best describe Deep Fear as a trouble-at-sea crime-thriller… but with (a limited amount of) sharks. That said, I found myself enjoying this much more than I expected.”
Many viewers took issue with tired plot stereotypes, poor acting, and lack of character depth. Others thought the high suspense made the action thriller engaging and enjoyed that the film was an easy watch. If you want to find out for yourself, Deep Fear is available to stream on Netflix now.
