If Kimmy Schmidt went surfing

The Shallows

Crit

She's (spoiler alert) alive, dammit! It's a miracle! Nancy Adams (Blake Lively) is a female who is strong as hell, and also resourceful as hell in this marriage of the horror movie villain introduced by Steven Spielberg 41 summers ago to the timeless horror movie trope of the woman menaced by a malevolent and, let's face it, supernatural force.

The great white is basically the same one we met in Jaws, with the same intelligence and the same strategy of attacking the machines and other devices by which its tormentors, aka lunch, are tenuously clinging to survival.

A less obvious association is 127 Hours; in both, nature, before showing its red-in-tooth-and-stone hand, is majestic and . . . not gentle, but essentially benign. The feeling is different here, though, because even before GW shows up, we get the underwater Jaws shots and ominous musical cues as Nancy surfs, literally and figuratively immersing herself.

Later, stranded on a rock and unable to summon help from shore, Nancy does what she can, and that's enough, as she employs plenty of brain and more brawn than the shark expects. She is a damsel in distress, but . . . well, strong as hell.

Trailers

Bookended by Ghostbusters and Swiss Army Man trailers I'd seen before were 4 from horror, and seemingly from hunger:

• Don't Breathe--Or just don't go to this movie.
• Morgan--Or don't screw around with artificial beings.
• Lights Out--As bad an idea as not breathing.
• Ouija: Origin of Evil--With Henry Thomas (speaking of Spielberg)!