STACK #249 July 2025

MOVIE FEATURE

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REEL NOIR: MAKING FEAR BELOW Fear Below is Jaws by way of Miller’s Crossing , a brilliant post-Depression-era shark thriller with mobsters and a buried treasure twist. GENRE: Action Thriller RUN TIME: 1h 25m

J ust when it seemed like killer shark movies had run their course, along comes a couple of Aussie bangers that blow the genre out of the water – Sean Byrne’s Dangerous Animals and this gem from Matthew Holmes, Fear Below – the best we’ve seen in 20 years. mobsters to retrieve lost gold from a riverbed, while a territorial bull shark stalks their every move. Fresh off the release of his gritty thriller The Cost , Holmes plunged straight into Fear Below . Now deep into production on his next film, The Sundowner , he took a break to chat with STACK about shaking up the shark genre. “Setting Fear Below apart from other shark films was a primary Set in the 1940s, the story follows a dive team hired by

goal from its inception” he admits, “because I find most modern shark films to be indistinguishable from one another, usually because they are set on the ocean with some beautiful, stranded 20-somethings wearing fluro swimwear. “Myself and co-writer Gregory Moss wanted to ensure four major distinctions: The time period it takes place, the location it takes place, the species of shark, and the reason our characters keep going back in the water. And we wanted to try to give the shark itself some kind of explanation for why it's doing what it is." The underwater sequences are as gripping as they come, but you might be surprised to learn how these scenes were achieved. ”The underwater scenes with

Director Matthew Holmes (second from right)

actors in old diving suits were shot dry-for-wet on a sound stage dressed as a riverbed, which means we didn’t use water at all. We used haze, lighting, and higher frame rates to simulate being underwater, then added bubbles and sediment in post-production to sell the illusion.” Glenn Cochrane

• Fear Below is out July 9

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE THESE:

Jaws, Dangerous Animals, Road to Perdition, The Shallows

GENRE: Drama RUN TIME: 1h 59m

BEHIND BARS: THE CORRESPONDENT Kriv Stenders, the director of Red Dog and Danger Close , brings the story of Australian journalist Peter Greste to the screen in The Correspondent .

P eter Greste was the Australian war correspondent who was mistaken for a spy by the Egyptian government and mercilessly tried and convicted for terrorism. His story made headlines around the world, causing outrage throughout. For Kriv Stenders, the story hit much closer to home, with the filmmaker and journalist having decades-long family ties. “Our fathers are friends,” he

and I was on tenterhooks the whole time he was in prison.” Although the idea of telling Greste’s story had momentarily crossed his mind at the time of the ordeal, he hadn’t entertained the idea until much later. “Carmel Travers, the producer, called me about four years ago and said, ‘Do you know anything about Peter Greste?’ and I laughed and said ‘I actually do know him’. She said that she was making a film about him and I said, ‘Sign me on, I don’t even have to read the script, I’m on board.” While wartime journalists are resilient,

Richard Roxburgh, Rahel Romahn and Julian Maroun

Director Kriv Stenders

moments where it was a little overwhelming,” explains Stenders. “But Peter’s also a very, very strong person. He had to be to survive what he did. And he picked up a lot of amazing psychological tools during his time there. “He has come to terms with it, and so by the time we were making the film he was fairly resilient, but I do remember the day I first showed him the film and that was quite confronting for him." Glenn Cochrane

FUN FACT

explains when chatting with STACK . “They’re colleagues, they’re both architects and both of our families are Latvian. And I met Peter when we were about ten or 12. “So, when the story broke, it was obviously big news amongst our families,

Kriv Stenders has directed music videos for John Farnham, Mental As Anything, Noiseworks, The Choirboys, 1927 and The Go-Betweens amongst others.

reliving the ordeal through the book and subsequent film must have been incredibly tough for Greste. “He had a couple of

• The Correspondent is out July 30

IF YOU LIKE THIS, YOU’LL LOVE THESE:

The Killing Fields, Midnight Express, Escape From Pretoria

14 JULY 2025

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