Brilliant Pictures have unveiled first look images from upcoming shark thriller “Deep Fear” starring “Gossip Girl’s” Ed Westwick and “House of Gucci’s” Madalina Ghenea. The company is launching worldwide sales in Cannes.
In the first images, Ghenea is pictured in her diving gear underwater (above) and huddled with Wetwick on the top deck of a ship (below). Brilliant Pictures also released a solo image of Westwick on a boat pointing a gun.
In “Deep Fear,” Ghenea plays Naomi in the film, a yachtswoman embarking on a solo trip in the Caribbean. Her last stop is Grenada, where she plans to rendezvous with her boyfriend Jackson (Westwick), until a storm forces her off course and into the paths of drug traffickers. When Naomi is forced to dive to retrieve their drugs from a shipwrecked vessel she comes face to face with a bevvy of vicious sharks. With only her wits to fend them off, Naomi must do whatever she can to survive.
Marcus Adams (“Long Time Dead”) directs the film, which wrapped in Malta last month.
Popular on Variety
“’Deep Fear’s’ tense and deadly underwater scenes are the visual and metaphorical essence of the movie,” says Adams. “When we filled the studio’ water tank (100m width x 13m depth) with over a million gallons of seawater, we were told it would need four days for the sediment to settle and allow for visibility. Four days we didn’t have in the shooting schedule. Fortunately, by day two, we filmed a test dive and I knew we’d struck gold. The lack of clarity and murky conditions created the perfect tone and setting for this dark and sinister thriller. Visible enough to see but not enough to be sure of their surroundings, this rendered the characters to be only partially in control and creates a feeling of intense threat. Plunged into the deep-sea blackness, there is a visceral fear that grips our film’s audience and won’t let go.”
The screenplay is written by Robert Capelli Jr (“The Rules (for Men)”) and Sophia Eptamentis (“Invincible Summer”) while Brilliant Pictures’ Sean O’Kelly (“Iron Sky”) and Marc Bikindou (“Black Dahlia”) produce alongside Halo Pictures’ Engelbert Grech (“The Raft”) and Chris Bongirne (“W.E.”).