Into the Deep (2025) – A Shark Flick That Sinks Without a Trace

Into the Deep, unleashed on January 23, 2025, in select U.S. theaters, digital platforms, and VOD via Gravitas Ventures (with a wider release the following day), is an action-horror thriller that tries to swim in the deep end of the shark movie pool but ends up floundering in the shallows. Directed by Christian Sesma, a journeyman of low-budget genre fare, this $5 million misadventure stars Scout Taylor-Compton as Cassidy Branham, a marine biologist with a shark-bitten past, alongside Callum McGowan as her forgettable husband Gregg, and Richard Dreyfuss as her grandfather Seamus, a grizzled echo of his Jaws glory days. Jon Seda and Stuart Townsend round out the cast, but even their presence can’t keep this soggy ship afloat. Written by Chad Law and Josh Ridgway, the film mashes up modern-day pirates, a half-hearted great white, and a pile of B-movie clichés, only to sink under its own weight—grossing a measly $51,955 worldwide against a 25% Rotten Tomatoes score based on 24 reviews as of today, March 27, 2025. It’s less a shark thriller and more a damp footnote in a crowded genre.

The plot kicks off with a premise that sounds like it was scribbled on a bar napkin: Cassidy, haunted by her father’s gruesome death-by-shark off Madagascar (seen in washed-out, milky flashbacks where Dreyfuss’ Seamus dispenses survival tips), is now a grown woman determined to face her fears. She joins Gregg for a dive expedition near Reunion Island, ostensibly to hunt sunken treasure with a ragtag crew—tourists Pierre (Tom O’Connell) and Itsara (Lorena Sarria), led by boat captain Daemon (Townsend). Enter Jordan (Seda), a cigar-chomping pirate straight out of a 1980s action flick, who hijacks their vessel in search of a lost drug stash. His plan? Force the tourists to dive into shark-infested waters to retrieve the contraband, turning a treasure hunt into a chum-soaked nightmare. The shark, billed as the star, barely shows up—lurking in the background like a bored extra—while Cassidy wrestles with her trauma, Jordan’s goons, and a script that drowns in its own redundancy. The 90-minute runtime drags, weighed down by clunky flashbacks, and ends with Dreyfuss delivering a shark conservation speech over the credits—a bizarre, preachy afterthought that feels like it’s begging for redemption the film doesn’t earn.

Sesma, no stranger to churning out direct-to-video pulp (The Flood, Section 8), aims for a gritty, pulpy thrill ride but stumbles hard in execution. Shot in Thailand masquerading as Madagascar, the visuals promise danger but deliver disappointment. Distant shark shots tease menace, only for close-ups to reveal CGI so shoddy it looks like a reject from a Syfy original—blood clouds blooming like pixelated Kool-Aid, a far cry from the practical terror of Dreyfuss’ Jaws days 50 years ago. Taylor-Compton fights valiantly through a script thinner than a paper cut, her trauma a flickering ember in a sea of clichés, while McGowan’s Gregg is a nonentity, blending into the scenery like driftwood. Seda’s Jordan hams it up with cartoonish gusto, all sneers and swagger, but it’s more laughable than menacing. Townsend’s Daemon, a potentially intriguing captain, is wasted—relegated to scowling and steering while the plot drifts aimlessly. Then there’s Dreyfuss, trading on Jaws nostalgia in brief poolside scenes, his jittery Seamus barking wisdom like a man who wandered in from a different movie. His end-credits conservation plea—noble in intent—lands like a PSA stapled to a sinking ship, jarring and out of place. Sean Murray’s score, all churning strings and rote stabs, tries to inject tension but feels as uninspired as the rest of the mess.

Critics have skewered Into the Deep with a mix of pity and disdain, calling it “a shark movie where the shark’s an afterthought” (IGN) and “a ham-fisted, shot-on-the-cheap exercise” (Rotten Tomatoes consensus). X posts from early 2025 echo the sentiment: “Dreyfuss deserves better than this trash,” one user lamented, while another quipped, “More pirates than jaws—where’s the bite?” A few outliers found it “gory enough for a lazy watch,” but the consensus mourns its squandered potential—too much pirate bluster, not enough aquatic terror. With an average rating of 4/10 on Rotten Tomatoes, it’s clear this isn’t the Jaws successor fans hoped for—not even a worthy cousin to The Shallows (2016), which proved low budgets can still deliver shark-fueled suspense. Instead, it’s a damp squib, a cheap dive into a genre overcrowded with better swimmers.

The shark movie lineage looms large over Into the Deep. Steven Spielberg’s Jaws (1975) set the gold standard, blending practical effects with primal fear to create a cultural juggernaut—grossing over $470 million (adjusted) and making Dreyfuss’ Hooper an icon. Decades later, the genre splintered into two camps: high-concept hits like Deep Blue Sea (1999) and campy schlock like Sharknado (2013). Sesma’s film tries to straddle both, tossing in pirates and drug runs for a modern twist, but it lacks the finesse of the former and the gleeful absurdity of the latter. At $5 million, its budget isn’t peanuts—The Shallows cost $17 million and looked pristine—but the money seems misspent, funneled into a bloated cast and Thai location shoots rather than effects that could’ve made the shark a real threat. The result? A film that can’t compete with its ancestors or its peers, floundering in a sea of mediocrity.

Taylor-Compton, best known as Laurie Strode in Rob Zombie’s Halloween reboots, brings a flicker of grit to Cassidy. Her scenes in the shark cage—claustrophobic, water lapping at her face—hint at what could’ve been: a taut psychological thriller about conquering fear. But the script, penned by Law and Ridgway (veterans of forgettable actioners), buries her in trite dialogue and repetitive flashbacks. One moment she’s trembling at the sight of a fin; the next, she’s inexplicably coaxing a shark away like an aquatic whisperer—a plot twist so absurd it’s almost parody. McGowan’s Gregg, meanwhile, is a cipher—his museum job and diving skills mentioned but never explored, leaving him as little more than a prop for Cassidy’s arc. Seda’s Jordan chews scenery with the subtlety of a buzzsaw, his pirate crew a collection of interchangeable thugs who exist to yell and die. Townsend’s Daemon has the makings of a rogue with depth—exuding quiet menace in early scenes—but he’s sidelined, a casualty of a narrative too cluttered to breathe.

Then there’s Dreyfuss, the film’s big hook. Fifty years after Jaws, his return to shark-infested waters should’ve been a coup. Instead, it’s a letdown. Appearing mostly in landlocked flashbacks, he’s a jittery Seamus, pacing poolside or barking lessons at a young Cassidy (Quinn P. Hensley). His Oscar-winning gravitas is nowhere to be found—replaced by wooden delivery and a restless energy that feels more like impatience than character. The end-credits speech, where he rails against shark finning and extinction, is a noble detour—five minutes of cue-card preaching that’s more compelling than the film itself. But it’s too little, too late, a plea for relevance tacked onto a corpse already drifting to the bottom. X users have noted the irony: “Dreyfuss talking shark conservation is the only part worth watching—skip the movie.”

Sesma’s direction doesn’t help. A prolific helmer of VOD action flicks (Vigilante Diaries, Every Last One of Them), he’s comfortable with tight budgets but flails here. The Thailand shoot—doubling for Madagascar—offers postcard-worthy vistas, but the underwater scenes are a mess. Distant shark shots, likely stock footage, tease a lurking predator, only for close-ups to reveal CGI so dated it’d make Sharktopus blush. Blood effects look like they were slapped together in post-production, cheap and unconvincing. The pacing lurches—action sequences (a Coast Guard shootout, a shark cage dive) spark briefly, only to be doused by endless flashbacks that grind momentum to a halt. Murray’s score, all ominous drones and predictable swells, tries to paper over the cracks but feels like it’s scoring a different, better movie.

The film’s box-office haul—under $2 million, with a reported $51,955 per Wikipedia—speaks volumes. Released in a crowded January slot, it faced little competition yet still sank, a victim of lukewarm buzz and scathing reviews. On X, fans of shark flicks lamented its lack of bite: “Thought it’d be Jaws meets The Expendables. Got a pirate snooze-fest instead.” Others praised Taylor-Compton’s effort—“She’s too good for this”—but the consensus was clear: Into the Deep is a one-and-done watch, if that. For diehards, it might scrape by as a chum bucket of gore and nostalgia, but it’s no keeper. Compared to The Meg (2018), which leaned into its absurdity with a $150 million budget, or even 47 Meters Down (2017), which milked tension from a $5 million cage, Sesma’s flick feels like a minnow among sharks—small, forgettable, and out of its depth.

In the end, Into the Deep is a wet misfire—a shark movie that forgets its fins, a pirate thriller that loses its swagger, and a nostalgia grab that wastes its biggest catch. It’s not unwatchable, just uninspired, a soggy slog that can’t swim with the genre’s big fish. For those desperate for a fin fix, it’s a one-time dip at best—better left to drift away on the tide.