10 Scariest Shark Movies!

2. The Reef

Shark Night
Atlas Entertainment

That one moment shown in the accompanying GIF is enough to instantly send a shiver down your spine.

While the shark subgenre had spent years more often than not serving up subpar effort after subpar effort, that changed in 2010 when Andrew Traucki gave audiences The Reef. Loosely based on real events, The Reef centres on a group of Australians on a trip to deliver a yacht to Indonesia. After just two days, their vessel hits some coral reef and capsizes - leaving the group of friends ominously floating in the ocean.

Opting to try and swim to a nearby island, it soon becomes apparent that the group is being stalked by a great white shark.

For anyone whose stomach gets slightly turned at the thought of watching a shark movie, The Reef is true nightmare fuel - with pretty much 75 minutes of the film's 94-minute run time focussed on the terrified group stranded in the ocean, at the mercy of the sea and the predators within in.

When looking at the pantheon of shark movies seen over the decades, it's with no sense of hyperbole to say that The Reef really is in the upper echelon of the very best films within the subgenre - with the constant sense of uncertainty, anxiety, and dread ticking a whole lot of the right boxes.

Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.