If nothing else, THE SHALLOWS lives up to its title.

Disappointing in its lack of depth, THE SHALLOWS is schlock and cheese where it should be shock and unease.

A cross between Blair Witch and Jaws, THE SHALLOWS
begins on a Mexican beach with found footage of a shark attack.

Cut to the same beach as Nancy Adams, medical student, makes a pilgrimage to the place where her mother discovered she was pregnant with her.

Blake Lively makes a lovely Nancy, and director Jaume Collet-Serra likes to linger longer on her limber limbs and bikini breasts, his camera vicariously copping a feel, like an adolescent fixated on cleavage and camel toe.

The shark is also a Nancy boy, relentless in his pursuit of her, eschewing a big blubbery whale cadaver for chewing on Nancy’s svelte skimpily clad body.

Nancy suffers bites, coral cuts and jelly fish stings in her battle against the behemoth, and her surgical studies come in handy in makeshift repairs to her damaged bod.

The action takes place between an atoll, which she shares with a seagull she calls Steven, and a shipping navigation buoy, where the final showdown between sheila and shark plays out.

THE SHALLOWS could have done with some gallows humour but got syrupy sentimental instead and so quite never quite catches the wave of suspense.

In the denouement, the Rip Curl girl tries to channel Ripley, from the Alien series, but the allusion is a pale replica.

Demonising a creature of the deep as a deliberate predator of a damsel in distress is archaic and anthropomorphistic and more than a bit deplorable. Think about it when you next chow down to a piece of flake or shark fin soup.