By SHAWN MACOMBER
Usually, when we’re talking about a shark film having heart, it’s a still half-beating one floating up out of a chomped-in-two chest cavity and taking a sunset cruise without its previous owner.
THE REEF: STALKED, however, takes a different approach, embedding a family tragedy into a brutal animal attack film. It works beautifully – thanks in no small part to a brilliant lead performance by Teressa Liane of The Vampire Diaries fame.
RUE MORGUE recently took a deep dive with the Aussie actress into what it took to get the right chum mixed for this holistic horror currently streaming on Shudder.
Doing a bit of research before this interview, a line in your IMDB bio about how you “enjoyed sports and the arts, equally” growing up jumped out at me. It seems to me that THE REEF: STALKED, with its physicality and psychological elements, was a good opportunity to marry those two worlds.
Yeah. You basically got it completely right. [Laughs] This was one of those roles where, when I saw that she was athletic, I was just like, Finally! And the deeper I got into it, the more I rediscovered this sort of, like, joy that comes from just kind of throwing myself into something physically. So the stunt side of things was a big draw, but then also, I liked the idea of challenging myself to see if I could maintain this story and character across the film while all that’s happening.
Right. And, as you note, there is an actual, very real dramatic component to the film.
It’s true. I definitely liked that the script surprised me. It didn’t just hit all the standard notes of what we’ve come to expect from a shark film with a few jump scares. The characters weren’t merely there for plot points. There is this very traumatic loss of a loved one, which is treated seriously and given real attention throughout the film, showing us how these characters mourn. Then, with the shark, we see how they survive in a different arena. I really loved this idea of these childhood friends who are able to lean on each other as they try to navigate things – emotionally, first – but also then physically when they are forced to.
Were there any touchstones you looked to when approaching this role?
Not specifically. I actually was careful not to watch any shark films leading up to the shoot because I didn’t want to fall into mimicking any other performance. For me, it was really just focusing on the emotional arc of the character and allowing the performance to find its own way. One thing [writer-director] Andrew [Traucki] said throughout the shoot was that he didn’t want me acting towards some big superhero moment. “Nic is a normal person dealing with things in the moment as they’re happening and just trying to survive,” he said. I felt the same.
This might be a completely ignorant question – and I apologize in advance if it is – but you’re from Melbourne, and the film was shot in Australia. From the outside, it seems as if your home country has a closer connection to the wilderness and animals. Does it take more to scare Australians with animals in a film than the rest of us?
You know, I wouldn’t have thought so, but it seems like whenever I come out to the states people sort of nervously ask me about certain animals that I probably wouldn’t have even thought twice about. You know, “How do you deal with those giant spiders?” “Oh, nothing to it—they’re usually harmless!” But, yeah, maybe we’re just used to seeing it. A little desensitized. It might take more to scare us, in that sense.
Do you want to work more in genre film?
I’m open to just about any genre, depending on the story. I mean, that’s not to say I’ll never do something just because it’s fun, but for right now, I’m enjoying material that represents women in a multifaceted, multidimensional way. I’m looking for roles that are more focused on what a character is thinking and feeling and doing rather than how they look.
That’s the grounding that makes an audience care. In the case of THE REEF: STALKED, that’s what makes the scares and suspense effective.
Right. I hope this film gets both sides right. I hope the sort of jump-cut vibe and genre elements connect but also that the audience is drawn into the emotional world of the characters. It doesn’t have to be one or the other – and I love that.
THE REEF: STALKED IS PLAYING NOW ON SHUDDER.
