The film opens with sisters Cath and Nic with friends Jodie and Lisa diving and spearing fish. Walking back to the carpark, Cath's abusive husband Greg takes Cath home. That evening, Nic gets a desperate text from Cath and rushes over only to find Cath's body drowned in a bath and Greg claiming she made him do it.
Nine months later, Nic returns from India and reunites with Jodie, Lisa and Annie (Nic and Cath's younger sister) at a rented cabin to a nearby island. After catching up and celebrating their reunion, the group goes on a kayaking trip the next day. While doing some spear fishing, Annie feels something is wrong and briefly notices a shark's dorsal fin. When the group heads back, Annie is then tipped over by a massive great white shark and manages to get back onto the kayak. Lisa turns around to help, but is also thrown from her kayak. Trying to reach Annie, Lisa is killed by the shark.
When the three women regroup and paddle back to land, a young girl, Demi, playing with her friend Winston, is bitten by the shark but survives. The three women decide to head to the nearest island for medical help. The children's mothers wait on the island with their children while Nic, Jodie and Annie tie a kayak to either side of an old fishing motor boat to stabilize it and then set off. While venturing across to the next island, the boat is taking in water and then the motor packs up, despite it having enough fuel, all the while encountering the shark along the way.
After Nic and Annie get into an argument about Nic being gone, the shark returns and drags Annie into the water, only for Annie to survive. Nic apologizes for not having been there after Cath's death, admitting it was too much for her and she blamed herself for not doing something, even when she believed something was wrong between Cath and Greg. Annie forgives Nic. When the shark reappears, Nic points out that, for some reason, it will hunt them to no end and they need to kill it rather than try to out-paddle it. Using a fish Jodie caught earlier as bait, they attach it to the boat's little anchor, hoping the shark will become stuck on the anchor and drown.
It seems to work at first and the three women resume their journey. However, the shark frees itself and attacks them once more. The women then throw a fishing net over the shark, trapping it. When Annie gets tangled in the net with the shark, Nic jumps in and stabs the shark multiple times. The three women rejoice and continue onto the island for help.
Sometime later, Annie, Jodie and Nic walk along a beach to a small plaque on a rock commemorating Cath and Lisa, "dive sisters forever". After receiving a video call from a fully recovered Demi, they leave flowers, a shell necklace and the original selfie of the four from the start of the film.
In November 2020, it was announced that a sequel to The Reef was in development, with Andrew Traucki as director and writer.[2] By May 2022, Teressa Liane, Ann Truong, Saskia Archer, Kate Lister, and Tim Ross were cast. [3]
Principal photography began on June 10, 2021 in Australia.[4] Production was originally scheduled to commence in late-2020, for a release in the summer of 2021.[2] The film was financed by Filmology Finance.[5]
Release
In the US, The Reef: Stalked was released simultaneously in theaters and VOD by RLJE Films and Shudder on July 29, 2022.[3][6]
