Something in the Water review – contrived shark thriller with no hidden depths

A wedding at a luxury resort takes a gory turn when the bride and her four best friends take a boat trip into shark-infested waters. And all the Bridezilla micromanaging in the world can’t prepare the hen party for a sinking vessel, a shortage of lifejackets and a screenplay which is drowning in banality and cliches. The feature debut from art director-turned-filmmaker Hayley Easton Street, Something in the Water is competently filmed, with lots of propulsive underwater shark’s eye shots of the flailing legs of the bridesmaids. But there’s rather too much time spent watching the girls bobbing and bickering in the middle of the ocean as they wait for the next assault from the circling fish. And a subplot about the failed relationship between two of the women, Meg (Hiftu Quasem) and Kayla (Natalie Mitson), feels contrived and unpersuasive, in this thriller which, like most of the cast, ends up dead in the water.