Some of the best shark films use the majestic creature as a metaphor for subtext. Like the best survival thrillers, surviving a shark isn’t just about person versus nature, but also a person against their inner fears or trauma. Sometimes the shark can represent something large, like encroaching capitalism in Jaws. But a lot of times, the shark is centered around something personal for the main character to overcome. In Open Waters, the couple are fighting against a disintegrating relationship while being lost at sea. In The Shallows, Blake Lively’s Nancy comes back to the island her mother once visited while contemplating her future. Writer/director Andrew Traucki follows suit with his standalone sequel to The Reef, The Reef: Stalked by centering the shark encounter in fears of failure and domestic violence.

An opening sequence establishes the emotional stakes, as a group of friends finish their dive and one of them goes home with her abusive husband. Nic (Teressa Liane) watches her sister go with him, his hand grasped firmly on her arm but doesn’t think anything of it until her sister texts her “please come.” And when she gets to the house, she discovers her sister, drowned in the bathtub. The murderous husband tells her dejectedly, “she made me do it.” After that traumatic experience, Nic pulls away from diving and spending time in the water, as the final image of her dead sister under the water of the tub continues to bubble in her brain.

But her other, younger sister Annie (Saskia Archer) and her two friends Jodie (Ann Truong) and Lisa (Kate Lister) finally manage to convince her to go on a three day, two night journey through a Pacific Island kayaking adventure. These four women fill in familiar stock characters we expect to see in survival situations. There’s the alpha woman Jodie who assigns the kayaks to specific people, telling them how to distribute the weight evenly and basically taking charge. Nic’s younger sister Annie isn’t used to the physical adventures her sister and friends go on and she’s out of her element here, wanting to prove her worth to her sister and friends. So when she slows down the paddling and seems tired, she pushes back as her sister offers to tow her during the kayaking. And Lisa seems like the caring one, offering advice and looking out for Annie as if she’s her own sister.

While the characters do tend to fall into the stock characters the story typically calls for, the actors give them so much more character. I cared about each of the characters—a nice change from these types of films where all too often the people don’t feel like friends. Their arguments and the conflict that arises between them is often cemented in their desire to escape the shark than falling back on interpersonal conflicts. And even the conflict between Annie and Nic feels authentic, as the sisters try to navigate their own familial drama.

A few hours into their journey, they stop to do some diving, which reinforces Nic’s PTSD as she keeps getting flashes of her dead sister every time she looks at the ocean. While Lisa sits in the kayak waiting for her group to finish diving, she sees a fin in the water and calls for the group to come back. They decide to head toward a small island where a couple of kids are playing, and that’s when the shark truly makes its appearance known.

Unlike most shark films, Andrew Traucki attempts to ground his films in reality, using real sharks instead of relying on fake creations. In an interview with Andrew, he quotes Stephen King’s famous line about, “the writer is much more fortunate than the filmmaker, who is almost always doomed to show too much... including, in nine cases out of ten, the zipper running up the monster's back.” It’s incredibly effective in The Reef and only slightly less effective here in Stalked. Sometimes, the shark is transposed into the scene or with stunt doubles incredibly effectively, such as a moment when the shark lunges for the legs of one of the women or when it attacks the kayaks or a jetty.

Other times, it shatters the suspension of disbelief as the creature is obviously inserted into the scene. One particular moment has a blur of a shadow race towards a kayak that just ruins the immersion. But when it works, it works incredibly well, all captured by stunning cinematography of Justin Brickle, who captures not only the majesty and terror of the Great White Shark but also gives us enough location porn to last forever. Shot on location, the film oozes beauty and heightens the authenticity that’s missing from some of the more recently released shark films.

The film also has a propulsive feel to it, as the shark is a very real threat that’s with the kayakers for the entire movie. This isn’t a “people against the wild” film that turns into “people against a shark.” The shark is front and center and causes all of the tension in the film, from having to save children on a jetty to trying to get help to deal with sinking ships and more. The film never really drags nor does it fall into the trap of recent films that save the shark for a couple scenes.

Aside from some iffy shark insertions that come from using real sharks and not relying on computer effects, the music is a bit too boisterous. The score by Mark Smythe sometimes raises the tension, but far too often its bombastic instrumentation also yanks the viewer from the action. And while grounding the film in trauma worked for this reviewer, it’s almost become a trope at this point, so mileage may vary. But overall this is a surprisingly decent entry in the shark attack genre and fans of Traucki’s previous films will find a lot to enjoy here.