If you’re in the market for a new shark thriller that’ll make you doubt going back into the water then October is your month as a new one is heading for the select cinema and digital market. Titled Deep Fear, the film stars Ed Westwick (Gossip Girl, Children of Men, Chalet Girl) and Madalina Ghenea (House of Gucci, Youth, Dom Hemingway) alongside Stany Coppet (Vikings: Valhalla), and Macarena Gomez (Dagon, Shrew’s Nest). The Deep Fear trailer can be viewed below.
Set in the Caribbean, the film is described as a visceral survival thriller with ‘palpitating action and tension that builds throughout’. Two years in the making, the eagerly anticipated feature film arrives hot on the heels of Cocaine Bear, which spawned an insatiable appetite for the genre – fuelled further by the real-life cocaine-shark frenzy, as recently seen off the coast of Florida.
Madalina Ghenea stars as Naomi, an accomplished round-the-world yachtswoman, who sets out on a solo trip to meet her boyfriend, Jackson – played by Ed Westwick – in Grenada. Her tranquil three-day sail aboard 47-foot yacht ‘The Serenity’ takes an unexpectedly dark turn when a storm forces her off the plotted course.
Circumnavigating an uninhabited reef-fringed island, she responds to a distress signal to aid a sinking vessel where she finds three survivors clinging to the shattered remains of a boat. Events soon take a malevolent twist when it transpires the survivors are drug traffickers (narcos), played by Coppet and Gomez, who force Naomi to dive down into the hull of the sunken wreck to retrieve 850 kilos of cocaine. The plan is thwarted when Naomi finds herself surrounded by a frenzy of man-eating, great white sharks – lured by the dead bodies in the wreck. In a tense and deadly undersea attack, Naomi must use her wits and determination to survive.
Bringing natures’ most awesome apex predator to life, both in and out of the water, are some of the world’s most talented creatives. Accomplished underwater cinematographer, Mark Silk and his team shot at depths of up to 60 feet using state-of-the-art technology and techniques to capture the fast-paced underwater action. BAFTA-award winning LipSync Post’s Head of VFX, David Fowler(Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narina, King Arthur), created CGI life scale models of the sharks using animation, texturing, lighting and water simulation software and techniques, to create a truly authentic and naturalistic depiction of the ocean’s ultimate predator.
Directed by Marcus Adams (Long Time Dead, Octane, The Marksman) with screenplay co-written by Robert Capelli Jr (The Rules (for Men), Mail Order Bride) and Sophia Eptamentis (Invincible Summer, What Exit?), Deep Fear is produced by Brilliant Pictures’ Sean O’Kelly (Iron Sky, Damascus Cover) and Marc Bikindou (Black Dahlia, Deception) together with Fred Films’ James Spring (Come Away, Dorian Gray, Fisherman’s Friends) as Executive Producer.
Here’s the Deep Fear trailer. Look out for the film in select cinemas and on digital from 30th October through Brilliant Pictures and The Movie Partnership.
