...the film's final stretch is unexpectedly engrossing...

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 28, 2013

Considering what most low-budget shark flicks look like, The Reef is a welcome sight indeed.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Sep 5, 2011

Traucki manages to keep the tension running throughout the film's 94-minute runtime even before the shark ever shows up to make dinner out of the cast.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 10, 2011

... squirm-worthy survival adventure ... Go ahead, take the plunge. 'The Reef' is an authentic nail-biter (toe-nibbler?) that lives up to its fun come-on: 'Pray that you drown first.'

| Original Score: 3/4 | Jul 18, 2011

Lacking the compelling drama and survival horror kick of its cousin Open Water, The Reef is brisk and reasonably involving, but pretty middling, too.

| Original Score: C+ | Jul 16, 2011

The Australian tourist industry will hate it but The Reef is an extremely effective watery horror/thriller.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Mar 28, 2011

For most of the time, Traucki manages the horror well, with the menace inferred. Particularly spine-chilling is the scene in which Walshe-Howling is exploring the air pocket in the upturned boat. Sound tells the story.

| Mar 23, 2011

Terrible scripting, unconvincing acting, wonky continuity and feeble atmospherics induce an overpowering feeling of tedium that cancels out any potential for true terror.

| Original Score: 1/5 | Mar 17, 2011

Once that journey happens it is tremendously effective and, honestly, it's like you want to get out of that cinema.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 17, 2011

The film is good at what it does, goes to plan and concludes in a modest 88 minutes. Yet if that's success, it's also a failing, for it's not particularly memorable or distinctive.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Mar 17, 2011

Fortunately, the lengthy scenes in which the four frightened swimmers are menaced by a white pointer are chillingly well handled -- not since Jaws 35 years ago has the horror of this sort of situation been as well captured on film.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 16, 2011

Jaws it is not, but it's well worth the hour of suspense to see which one, and only one, will survive.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 15, 2011

As for suspense, there isn't much. When the only thing at stake is the size of the body count, suspense becomes the first casualty.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Mar 14, 2011

There is something fun about being scared by a movie and The Reef offers that sort of safe danger that, for some reason, most of us occasionally crave.

| Mar 14, 2011

Taut, suspenseful and finely acted, this delivers both thrills and strong characterisation.

Full Review | Mar 14, 2011

It's short, sharp and to the point, and the careful, measured use of shark footage is exemplary

| Mar 12, 2011

Here's a terrific genre movie splashed liberally with tension, scares and just enough humour

| Mar 12, 2011