“The Reef: Stalked,” starring Teressa Liane and directed by Australian Andrew Traucki, is a spiritual follow-up to Traucki’s 2010 film “The Reef.” Like the movie that came before it, “The Reef: Stalked” is a thriller about surviving an attack by sharks. Nic and Annie go kayaking with their friends after their sister dies. Things go from bad to worse when a great white shark comes after them.
The story looks at how loss and grief affect two sisters and how that affects their relationship. The classic genre is used as a metaphor for domestic violence. At the same time, the plot keeps the audience interested with scenes that are scary and characters that are interesting. If you want to know what happens to these people and how they get out of the shark-filled water, here is how “The Reef: Stalked” ends. SPOILERS AHEAD!
The Reef: Stalked Plot Synopsis
The movie opens with a group of divers out in the ocean. On the way home, the husband of Cath, Nic’s sister and one of the divers, shows up to drive her home. Nic notices an air of tension between the couple and tries to contact Cath, but her call goes to voicemail. In the afternoon, her sister sends her a text message asking for help. Nic gets to her house too late and finds Cath dead in a bathtub. Her husband had killed her. Nic leaves the country soon after because he is so upset and sad. By doing this, she leaves her family, including her younger sister Annie.
A few months later, Nic goes back to her home country to go kayaking with her diver friends Jodie and Lisa. There, she sees Annie again and learns that while Nic was gone, her younger sister also started diving. The next day, the group heads out in kayaks, stopping whenever they want to jump into the water. But soon after, Annie’s kayak is attacked by a great white shark. Annie avoids a horrible death, but she loses Lisa to the shark in the end. As the three women try to get out of the water, they see children swimming near the shore in the ocean.
Jodie tries to warn them, but one of the kids gets eaten before she can. Demi makes it out of the car accident alive, but she is badly hurt and needs medical help. The island has no cell, reception, or internet but rather just one old, vulnerable little boat. The only way to get help is to travel to the neighbouring island— and the only thing that stands in their way is one great white shark, who seems to be out for blood.
The Reef: Stalked Ending Explained: Does Annie Die?
Annie is the first person in the group to see the shark, and she is also the one with the least experience diving. But when the shark attacks her for the first time, she dodges it and gets out of the water by jumping on top of her overturned kayak. On the other hand, Lisa doesn’t have it so good. After the shark kills Lisa, it goes for the kids playing near a closeby island. Because of this, Demi, a young girl, gets hurt before Jodie can help her. Even though the three of them make it out of the water alive, Annie realises that they need to go back out there to help Demi.
Initially, Nic is against this idea. She is still sad about the death of one of her sisters, and she doesn’t want to see another one die. Nic thinks that the island’s only motorboat is too unstable and dangerous, but Annie thinks there’s no other choice. Annie ties two of their kayaks to the sides of the boat to make it more stable. Nic still thinks it’s a bad idea, but she goes with Annie and Jodie off the island. Nic’s fears are soon realised when the old, rickety boat starts to leak and the engine stops working. Thus, leading to an emotional confrontation between the two sisters.
Annie blames Nic for abandoning her and her parents after Cath’s death and accuses her of not really knowing either Cath or Annie. Nic is defensive, but it’s clear that her sister’s jabs hurt her. Before they can settle their disagreement, the shark attacks their boat again. Once Jodie and Nic stop the shark from taking Annie away, they realise that the shark is after them on purpose. They can only get rid of the shark by killing it.
They come up with a plan, but it doesn’t work out the way they think it will, and Annie and the shark get caught in a fishing net. Nic jumps after her with a machete in her hand. She sees Cath’s death in her mind and stabs the shark to death before it can kill Annie. Jodie, Nic, and Annie all make it out alive after their last run-in with the shark.
What Happens to Demi?
Before the shark can kill Demi, Jodie pulls her out of the water. Demi still gets a very bad bite wound, though. She is left to bleed out heavily without any good medical care. In order to help Demi, the three divers go to the other island, where they have to face the shark. Demi stays with her family on the island, where they try to keep her health stable.
The movie never shows her getting better in a clear way. Still, in the end, when Jodie, Nic, and Annie are on their way to pay tribute to Lisa and Cath, Demi video calls them and seems happy and safe. The three of them had gone to the other island and gotten Demi medical help behind the scenes.
Does Nic Have PTSD?
At the beginning of the movie, Nic sees her sister drowning in a bathtub. Greg, Cath’s violent husband, had killed her. Cath never told anyone about the abuse she got from her own family. But when she was almost dead, she tried to ask Nic for help. Nic hadn’t been able to get to her in time, though. Nic starts to blame herself for not being able to stop Cath’s murder after she dies. She feels bad that she didn’t notice Cath’s pain signs sooner. At some point, she feels too bad about what she did, so she leaves Australia.
After her sister died, Nic’s personality has changed a lot when we see her again. Nic gets more worried and cautious. She stops diving, which used to be her favourite thing to do, because it makes her think of her sister’s death and makes her feel bad. During the whole movie, she keeps seeing her sister’s death. These thoughts come up when Annie is in danger or when she is under a lot of stress. Nic thinks that what Annie and the shark are going through is almost the same as what Cath went through. Annie is in danger from the shark, and if Nic doesn’t stop it, Annie will die.
In the movie, Nic goes through a terrible event that makes her feel like she’s a bad person. At first, she tries to get away from these feelings by leaving, but even after she comes back from India, she doesn’t want to deal with them. When the shark attacks, she is reminded of those terrible memories and how they have changed her. After the fight with Annie, she finally faces her trauma and talks out loud about it. All of these are symptoms of PTSD. “The Reef: Stalked” is a classic shark movie with a lot of suspense, but Nic, the main character, uses the elements of the genre to talk about PTSD.
