Tucker admires Zephyr’s pluck and fighting spirit, seeing her as a kindred spirit, and wanting only the biggest and toothiest shark to eat her. What a gent. Check out my plot recap and ending below – does she survive? (My four star review is here.)
Prologue
Greg and Heather – an Australian and Brit respectively who have met at the same hostel – turn up at Tucker’s boat wanting to go on one of his shark tours. We meet Dave, Tucker’s boat “neighbour”, and Tucker soon turns up too. Their interactions are awkward and he makes the two travellers uncomfortable, but he then reels them back in with a joke and they go out with him on his boat. There is a picture of him as a child on the wall and he explains a shark incident involving him when he was young. Heather in particular is terrified by the thought of being lowered into the cage among the sharks, but she goes through with it and both are entranced by the sharks. Tucker pulls them out, with both on a high. Once back on the boat though, he pulls out a knife and stabs Greg twice in the throat, then pushes him into the sea where he is devoured by sharks. Heather screams.
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Moses meets Zephyr, an American surfer, in a store. He is trying to buy jump leads for his car which has broken down a few blocks away. She refuses to help him but he’s seen her steal a tub of ice cream and uses that as leverage to get her to take him back to his car to jump start it. She gives him a lift in her van. They then go back to his house and he stays the night with her in her van. Next morning while he is in his house making breakfast, she leaves without warning and heads down to a local beach to surf. It is very early and the place is deserted. She’s forgotten her fin key but spots Tucker’s truck parked up and asks him. He helps her then appears to leave. As Zephyr continues getting ready to surf, Tucker grabs her from behind and zips her into a board bag, taking her back to his boat.
Later Moses parks up by her van by the beach but can’t find her anywhere.
Zephyr wakes up handcuffed to a metal bed in a grimy room on the boat. Heather is attached to the other bed.
Tucker is watching a video of another woman dying, while Zephyr tries to pick the lock on her cuffs. She finds the name of a woman scratched into the wall. Heather has lost all motivation.
Moses sees Zephyr’s van being towed, and report’s her disappearance to the police but they don’t take it seriously as he doesn’t even know her surname. On the boat, Heather and Zephyr talk. Heather is on a gap year, though her mother feared it wasn’t safe for her. Zephyr shares that she is from the US foster system. Zephyr asks for the underwire from Heather’s bikini top which she uses to try and pick the cuff lock. Tucker arrives with basic sandwiches. He asks where Heather’s top is (she’s cowering under the blanket) but Zephyr distracts him by being rude to him and he leaves.
She carries on trying to pick the lock but drops the wire. Tucker returns with a harness and finds the wire, telling her “I love fighters. Makes for a better show.” Heather says she feels ill and passes out.
Zephyr wakes up strapped into a metal chair on the deck, and Tucker tells her he has seen her on her surfboard. Heather is in the harness but still not conscious. It is nighttime, and he sets up his video camera. He cuts off a lock of Heather’s hair and wakes her. She is hoisted up and out over the sea as she cries for her mother. Tucker has thrown chum into the sea and the sharks are circling. Zephyr begs him to stop but the sharks attack and Heather is killed, while Tucker films. A limb is seen floating in the water. He taunts Zephyr: “Tell me that isn’t the greatest show in Earth.” It will be her turn tomorrow night.
Back in her room she scratches Heather’s name into the paint on the wall. It looks like he’s making a lure with the lock of Heather’s hair, which he then attaches to the video tape of her death. In the morning Heather’s head drifts in the sea.
Moses is back at the beach, thinking about Zephyr and surfing.
Tucker comes in to Heather’s room and starts telling her sharks bring order to the ecosystem, eating weaker creatures. He thinks he’s the shark. She tells him that actually he is the “toxic fucking trash that floats in the ocean”.
When he leaves she notices the plastic handle on the pee bucket and snaps it off into a sharp point. Tucker is watching Heather’s video and then prepares the drugs for Zephyr. He goes in and she pretends to be asleep, then stabs him in the neck with the plastic handle and grabs his keys. He pursues her out of the room and stabs her with his syringe. She tries to radio from the bridge then shouts for help to a party boat nearby. Struggling with Tucker, she pushes his camera tripod off the boat into the water then tries to swim off, but he grabs her back in.
Moses checks the beach CCTV and sees Zephyr’s van arriving and then Tucker’s own truck and goes to track it down.
Greg and Heather in happier times!
A very unnerved Tucker is back at the harbour and goes off to buy a new camera, though he gets held up by traffic; Zephyr is left handcuffed again to the bed. Moses explores the boat and hears Zephyr shouting through her gag. He finds her and she sends him off to find something to pick the lock but Tucker is back; the two men fight while Moses is desperately trying to phone the police. Moses gets the upper hand and is strangling Tucker but is then whacked on the head by Dave, Tucker’s neighbour, who thinks Tucker is being attacked. Dave then hears Zephyr screaming – he hasn’t known that Tucker is a killer – so Tucker kills him with an axe to the head.
There is hardly any fuel left so Tucker works out where they can safely go with what is left.
Moses is now chained to Heather’s bed. He asks Zephyr why she left that morning, and though she claims she is better off alone he is not convinced.
Tucker comes in with the harness and Moses wakes up in it on deck. Zephyr tells Tucker that Moses is not a tourist but a local, and that people will look for him. Moses is hoisted out over the water, and dangles above the sharks. Tucker is filming. Zephyr shouts to Moses not move. A bull shark circles but does not attack and swims off. Tucker brings Moses back up then stabs him to make him bleed and sends him back in the water. As he hangs over the sea Tucker sees a helicopter nearby and the two are taken back into the ship again.
Moses is bleeding heavily and semi-conscious. Zephyr breaks her own thumb to help her get the handcuff off.
Tucker comes in and tells her Moses is too soft for her, as she and Tucker are hard, like solitary sharks. He goes out to prepare the drugs and she bites off her thumb so she can wriggle her hand out of the cuff. When Tucker comes in he finds her thumb and she then shuts him in the room. She fails to get the boat going but lights a flare and waves for help at a party boat. Tucker comes for her and they fight, him with a knife and she with a frying pan. Putting on the big boat lights, he sees her swimming away and chases her in his motor dinghy. She makes it to the shore where a party is taking place nearby – we hear the music playing – but as she scrambles up the sand he gets to her and drags her back. The song lyric “You are mine at last” drifts from the party.
Moses wakes up in the chair with Zephyr dangling over the water. Tucker starts telling them about the marlin, a fighter of a fish that still cannot escape the hook. A Great White is circling. Zephyr tells herself to be calm as she’s lowered in. Tucker is filming. A bull shark arrives and Tucker pushes it away with a long stick; he wants Zephyr to fight with, and be killed by, the Great White.
Zephyr grabs the stick; Tucker is filming and enjoying her fightback. She uses the stick to firm up the rope she’s attached to so she can climb up it, and manages to wriggle out of the harness. Tucker shouts at her – “boo!” – to make her fall and she plummets, before swimming away underwater. The Great White swims up to Zephyr who stays still, covering her bloodied hand. There is a moment between them and then the shark turns and swims away. Zephyr notes the old, healed wounds on the shark and realises it is a fighter and a survivor, just like she is.
Tucker is looking for her in the sea. She swims back and climbs aboard, and picks up Tucker’s harpoon. She says “ooby dooby motherfucker” and shoots him into the water. He tries to get back on the boat but the Great White has returned and leaps up, grabbing him and pulling him back into the water. He surfaces and sees the camera, which this time is filming his own death. He is pulled under the water. The shark swims away but Tucker is still attached to the harpoon thread which is spooled around Zephyr’s feet. She is dragged into the water before surfacing next to Tucker’s body.
Back on the boat, she lights a flare to attract the attention of the party boat nearby which honks its horn and turns around to come and help them. Waking Moses, Zephyr tells him that there is not nothing for her on land. “I knew it” he whispers.