21 movies that made us afraid to go into the water
Sharks and crocodiles and monsters ... oh my! From Jaws to The Abyss to The Shallows, these films fuel our aquaphobia
Film Features John C. Reilly
Do you remember the first movie that made you afraid to go into the water? For many of a certain generation, Jaws that made them irrationally afraid to even get into a cloudy swimming pool after seeing Steven Spielberg’s monstrous great white tear apart Amity Island. Although movies about scary sharks are plentiful—think Open Water, Deep Blue Sea, The Shallows, and The Meg, to name a few—filmmakers have exploited numerous other terrors lurking beneath the waves to make us think twice about taking a dip. Consider the killer fish in Piranha, the Nazi aqua-zombies of Shock Waves, the humungous crocodile in Lake Placid, the aliens of The Abyss, or the monsters in Creature From The Black Lagoon and The Host. Yes, aquaphobia is a legit thing, so before you check out The Meg 2: The Trench in theaters, here’s our alphabetical list of the movies that tapped into our fear of the unknown terrors that lie beneath.
42 Comments
Thanks for including the original Piranha. Love early Joe Dante, and the B-movie stuff John Sayles used to write to finance his more serious films.
People who like Piranha should also check out Alligator (also Sayles) which I guess doesn’t really qualify for this list since most of the action takes place on land.
Alligator made me afraid to go in the sewers. That and CHUD.
Sewers made me afraid to go into the sewers.
Aww, I thought Sweetheart was gonna be about the real Sweetheart:
As I’m sure you know, they did sort of make a movie about the Sweetheart you are thinking of — 2007’s Rogue, directed by Wolf Creek’s Greg McLean.
As an Australian, I’m not that familiar with Australian films. This is not a joke. Sweetheart, but, is one of the many, many reasons mum never learned to swim.
Orca!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn you! I saw that movie at age 4 in the theater and while I was rooting for the Whale, I would be scared to death if it was next to me on a small boat, even if I do love Killer whales!Also I saw Jaws 2 in the theater at age 5 and I never learned to swin because of that, while Jaws is my favorite (and to me the best movie ever) Jaws 2 is a fun stupid sequel.
Yeah, Bo Derick’s not even safe in her own house in Orca.
In her prime, even marine mammals wanted her!
Those legs must have tasted good!
I never learned to swin because of thatOff topic, but FIX THAT! Even though you think that it won’t ever matter, there’s too great a chance that either you will be in trouble in the water, or that someone you care about will be and you won’t be able to help. Find an adult class and get competent enough to get out of trouble.
Nah, they can fuck off. I learned to lift 500 pounds so if they are in danger in the real world I can save them! 🙂
Next up: 37 AV Club lists that made us go: “Sure, that’s a list.”
3,529,103 movies shot with cameras (you won’t believe #892,499!)
You forgot one.
I’m from boston and don’t know what “haaaaaw-shuh” is supposed to mean.
Isn’t it what you guys say when you are trying to pahk your cah in Havahd Yahd?
What is the translation!? House? Hush?
JAWS made a lot of kids like me fearful of swimming – not just in the ocean – but in a pond or a lake, too! I’m AARP age and waiting for someone to make a movie about a rogue Bull Shark swimming upriver and attacking kids – ala 1918 New Jersey (the inspiration for JAWS).Thank you for not making this a Top 10 list bc I was surprised to see JAWS in the middle.
Deep Star Six is still one of my all-time favorite movie posters.
I love the film, but willingly admit it’s pretty bad. Having said that, the marketing for it was top notch. Great poster. Great tagline.
Oh it’s not a very good movie. I put it next to this one with respect to biggest letdown relative to visual marketing. Those high-pressure suits were really the thing weren’t they? Bond fought a guy in one of these as well around the same time.
It’s funny that you posted that, because after I saw the Deepstar Six poster I immediately went to Def-Con 4 because in the video rental store I used to frequent, posters for those movies (and other B-movies like C.H.U.D.) were on the walls, often even after a decade from when the movies came out.
Did you work in an Atlanta Blockbuster? Because that’s almost certainly where I saw it.
The Abyss clip in the teaser of the mini-sub imploding is certainly timely.And The Shallows is right about sharks being pretty much anywhere salty. I watched a train of five or six really big ones lazily making their way through the surf probably 30 feet offshore in about five feet of water, with a bunch of people swimming around who never noticed.
I’d add, The Raft from Creepshow 2 (1987). The movie had multiple stories. This vignette was quite terrifying. Who knew a calm lake could be so scary.
^ 100% this.
The original story (I think it was in King’s collection Skeleton Key) was pretty disturbing too.
If you’re going to include films like All Is Lost and Perfect Storm, you certainly should include Dead Calm. I once overhead a group of tween girls in the video store (remember those?) debating what scary movie to rent. I suggested Dead Calm. I wonder if they’ve ever forgiven me?
Absolutely, Billy Zane is scarier than most of the monsters mentioned.
I was loving Open Water for easily four-fifths of the movie. I was drawn into the scenario, the predicament of these two people trapped in a terrible situation. And then… HERE BE SPOILERSThere’s a cutaway scene back to the dive boat that left the two main characters behind. One of the crew is cleaning up and discovers the bags of the two protagonists. He looks at their IDs, and we see the woman’s last name is Watkins, and the man’s last name is Kintner.I have seen Jaws more times than I can count. I know very, very well that the first two shark victims we see are Chrissy Watkins and Alex Kintner. For some reason, this little Easter Egg hit me as such an obvious, egregious wink to the audience that it took me completely out of the movie.
I saw Open Water 2 (I think it was 2), and the thought of being right next to the yacht in the middle of the ocean, but with no way to get back on it was frightening. It’s juuuust out of reach.
Can that really happen? It seems like there should be some sort of emergency backup required for exactly that reason.
More than any movie, what really scared me about the ocean was one passage of Moby Dick. It’s when they harpoon a whale and are getting pulled along and the cabin boy Pip goes overboard and left behind in the middle of the ocean and just imagining all of the unknown monsters waiting for him in the miles of deep below him… Fuck that.Also, I’m from Maine, and my family has a remote lake cabin. Lake Placid took me from “nothing to be scared of in the lake” to “well, you never know…” Goddammit.
Triangle is a really great movie that I need to watch again soon.
Honestly, this is a pretty solid list. Would have been nice to see some more alligator/crocodile titles show up (Black Water, Rogue, Crawl, and of course Alligator). Kudos for including Deep Star Six and Deep Rising, the latter of which truly is the definition of “dumb fun.”
The list should be 1. Jaws. 2. Sphere 3. Kidding. It’s just Jaws.
I barely remember Sphere, and I read the book. Was it really that scary?
Not at all. Total sarcasm. It was riding the Michael Crichton post-Jurassic Park movie train along with a few other books he did. Big names and skimpy on screenplays.
nice
Triangle and The Shallows rock so hard.Triangle turned a pretty boring premise to something intense and actually unexpected. I love these little gems when they pop out every once in a while. Melissa George really embodied that classic “regular person thrust into an unimaginable mind-bending horror situation” so well.The Shallows particularly impressed me because of Blake Lively. This really was her showcase through and through. I’m honestly surprised he hasn’t been cast in more action movies after this because she has immense potential.
None of these hold a candle to how badly The Raft scared me in Creepshow 2 (and later again when I read the short story.) Lakes and ponds still creep the fuck out of me 25+ years later. I don’t give a fuck about a shark or an alligator.