The Last Breath (2024) , A Horror Movie Review by Mark Walker

The Last Breath (2024) 

The Last Breath (2024) , A Horror Movie Review by Mark Walker

Written by Andrew Prendergast and Nick Saltrese 

Directed by Joachim Hedén

A group of old college friends reunite on a Caribbean scuba diving trip exploring the wreckage of a WWII battleship and find themselves trapped inside the underwater labyrinth of rusted metal surrounded by great white sharks. (IMDB)

The Last Breath (2024) Horror Movie Review
The Last Breath (2024) Horror Movie Review

If I was giving star ratings, The Last Breath would automatically get at least one for the sharks.

This reviewer is a sucker for a shark film. 

I have always been in awe of sharks and fascinated by them as animals. I know they are unfairly portrayed in movies but, ultimately, sharks can be terrifying and the image of a large, very pointy shark’s mouth, open-wide and ready to feed, is unnerving at the very least. Perfect for a scary movie.

So I was very happy to have a screener for The Last Breath. With this and Under Paris turning up on Netflix, it’s been a good couple of weeks for the sharks.

The Last Breath doesn’t offer much new to the genre, giving us a number of very eatable characters putting themselves in a dangerous situation and getting a full understanding of the acronym FAFO.

The Last Breath (2024) Horror Movie Review
The Last Breath (2024) Horror Movie Review

Levi (Julian Sands) and Noah (Jack Parr) are divers, giving tours for tourists and pretty much failing to make ends meet. But they are also looking for the wreckage of the US Charlotte a WWII battleship that has been hidden for decades. A tropical storm churns the seabed up and they finally discover the Charlotte’s final resting place and the potential answer to all their financial problems.

However, at the same time, a group of Noah’s old friends turn up and, when they find out about his discovery, the rich dick amongst them offers an obscene amount of money to dive illegally on the wreckage. It is dangerous, but Noah and Levi need the money, so you can guess what happens next!

The Last Breath (2024) Horror Movie Review
The Last Breath (2024) 

A well as Brett (Alexander Arnold) the annoying rich boy, we have Riley (Erin Mullen), the party girl, Logan (Arlo Carter) the stoner and Sam (Kim Spearman) Noah’s ex, a fairly obvious groups of character. We don’t get to have quite as much fun with those archetypes as we might like, a couple of them simply being ‘tokens’ but Carter plays Logan with obvious relish. The main character focus is on Noah and Sam and whether they will get back together again or end up as fish food.

Because not everyone is getting out alive. 

Brett, as you might guess, pushes things too far and the group find themselves stuck inside the wreckage, their guideline cut, air running out and, oh yeah, sharks.

The Last Breath pretty much does everything you want with a shark movie. People trapped with hungry sharks. People are going to die and it’s tense and scary. Being set under water and in the confines of a wreck in the dark, there is an added level of desperation and panic that the movie builds well on.

The Heart and Soul of Horror Review Websites The Last Breath (2024) 
The Last Breath (2024) 

However, The Last Breath does have a number of failings.

Depending on your expectations, are going to be easier or harder to ignore. Some of the decisions made by the divers feel a bit uniformed if I am honest, and I am pretty sure they could have escaped quite easily early on. Then again, I am not a diver, so what would I know? Horror like this relies on the odd silly decision but this lot have more than their fair share. 

For a wreck that has been missing for over 70 years it seemed pretty easy to find and appeared to be in about 5 feet of water judging by the amount of sunlight that followed the divers.

The movie also starts with a prologue that shows the US Charlotte going down and sailors getting eaten by sharks. I can’t see any reason for this, other than to suggest that the sharks in the prologue were the same ones that the divers come across over 70 years later. It may be possible judging by the lifespan of the Great White and just when this might have been set, but what were they doing for all this time and how had there never been any reports of sharks in that area before?

Clearly, it is easy to pick holes in The Last Breath.

But how much these and other inconsistencies bother you will depend on your expectations going in. This isn’t a documentary, so you don’t get accurate depictions of sharks. This is meant to be a thrill ride and it aims for that end of the spectrum, hitting the mark for most of the time.

Having said all that, overall, it’s a fun film with enough tension and drama to entertain for just over 90 minutes. I watched it, laughed at some of its failings but, at the end of it, was happy I had had a decent fill of shark action.

The Heart and Soul of Horror Review Websites The Last Breath (2024) 
The Last Breath (2024) 

I have no idea what the budget was for The Last Breath. But I am guessing we are not talking 100s of millions, but the team have done a decent job with what they have. The underwater scenes are effective, and the direction builds the claustrophobia effectively from the moment they enter the wreckage. The sharks themselves are decent enough, mostly seen in flashes as they dash at or past our hapless victims. The effects suffer a little more in later scenes when we see them for a little longer or where we see more of them but, on the whole, they are realistic enough to be scary. I mean, sharks are pretty scary buggers at the best of times.

The cast are all good, conveying panic and fear pretty well considering their faces are mostly hidden during the movie. Brett is a little over the top at times, but then his character needs to be. Everything is pretty much his fault, his rich kid attitude dragging everyone down with him, so a little bit of scenery chewing makes his character all the more eatable!

And then we have Julian Sands as Levi, the gruff sailor with a heart, who knits to help the motor skills in an injured arm. In what was probably his last film. Sands gives a fairly muted performance, he isn’t one of the main players here but, fittingly, goes out as a hero (minor spoiler, sorry) and The Last Breath isn’t a bad coda to a filmography that spans decades and hundreds of projects.

The Heart and Soul of Horror Review Websites The Last Breath (2024) 
The Last Breath (2024) 

The Last Breath isn’t going to make a massive splash, but it does bring sharks and I am always here for that. 

The Last Breath is on Digital Platforms and DVD & Blu-ray 1 July. Distributed by Signature Entertainment

The Heart and Soul of Horror Movie Review Websites

Author

  • Jim Mcleod

    Jim "The Don" Mcleod has been reading horror for over 35 years, and reviewing horror for over 16 years. When he is not spending his time promoting the horror genre, he is either annoying his family or mucking about with his two dogs Casper and Molly.

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