20 Huge Horror Movie Hits NOBODY Expected

Chris Kentis' low-budget shark horror-thriller Open Water had so, so much working against it. 

For starters, it was shot on hideous digital video, ensuring it looked every bit as low-budget as it was despite not being a found footage film. Beyond that, basically the entire movie is just two characters bobbing around while lost at sea with very occasional appearances of sharks, and the film also has an extremely bleak ending.

But Open Water struck a chord with critics and audiences regardless, with its tense minimalist filmmaking, use of practical sharks, and inspiration from true events adding up to a feature that delivered the low-fi goods. As a result, Open Water grossed a hugely unexpected $55.5 million - more than 100x its production budget - and while the concept seemed relatively repeatable for at least a few sequels, neither the second nor third film replicated the same success.

Open Water 2: Adrift and Open Water 3: Cage Dive were ultimately standalone films that were reworked into Open Water sequels during production. Open Water 2 ended up grossing just $6.8 million, while Open Water 3 failed to crack even $1 million.