Hollywood tackles mystery of deaths of Tuvala RPCVs Tom and Eileen Lonergan in Australian Scuba disappearance
Hollywood tackles Lonergans mystery
DARRELL GILES
16may04
HOLLYWOOD is cashing in on Queensland's Lonergans mystery.
A film called Open Water, based on the disappearance of American divers Tom and Eileen Lonergan off Port Douglas in January 1998, hits US theatres in August.
And the buzz is the horror-thriller flick will do big box office business.
Tom, 34, and Eileen, 29, holidaying in Australia, were left behind by the dive boat Outer Edge at the Fish City bommie on the Great Barrier Reef.
A coronial inquest found they were probably taken by sharks.
Open Water, directed by Hollywood newcomer Chris Kentis, features the story of power couple Daniel and Susan, who escape to a tropical paradise for a long-overdue vacation.
The certified scuba divers, played by relatively unknown actors Daniel Travis and Blanchard Ryan, board a dive boat for an underwater reef tour.
The boat is crowded with divers and due to a series of "innocent miscommunications and a distracted crew" the couple are accidentally left behind.
"What follows is the story of their ordeal: cold, alone and miles from land, the couple are adrift in shark-infested waters," said the promotion blurb from distributors Lions Gate Films.
Open Water, a low-budget independent production shot in the Bahamas using real sharks, has earned rave reviews at the Sundance and Seattle film festivals.
Reviewers described it as "Jaws meets The Blair Witch Project". One described it as the most scary movie he had ever seen.
A Lions Gate Films spokesman said an Australian release date had yet to be confirmed, but probably would be in time for our summer.
"Perhaps the most horrific aspect of Open Water is the fact that it really happened," wrote Scott Mantz, of the Los Angeles-based Internet movie website moviemantz.com
"I had a hard time buying that the boat crew could be so careless and unprofessional in their miscount, and I also couldn't believe that none of the other couples noticed that they were missing as the boat departed.
"While there are plenty of sequences featuring sharks, jellyfish and other such dangerous sea creatures, it is the quieter moments in which our central characters are watching their backs and predicting their own fates that make the movie so terrifying.
"Most importantly, I really had no idea where this movie was headed. And when we arrive at the end of the journey, I was quite shocked by the direction this film takes. In fact, it raised more questions than it answered."
David Germain, of Associated Press, said Open Water "terrifies visually and emotionally as harsh nature closes in on the couple . . . the film's hushed, understated closing sequence lingers in the mind for days".
Hollywood's Entertainment Weekly said Open Water was "primal terror" while Rolling Stone magazine said it would "fry your nerves to a frazzle".
The Lonergans case captured headlines in Queensland for several years.
The absence of bodies fuelled speculation that they met an altogether different fate than a shark attack.
The conspiracy theories included murder-suicide, assassination or faked death followed by retrieval by the CIA or a return to their Peace Corps work in the South Pacific.
The parents of Tom Lonergan dropped their legal action against former dive boat skipper Geoff "Jack" Nairn in 2001. Mr Nairn was acquitted of manslaughter charges.
"The reality of the situation is that I've been to hell and back over this and nothing was ever proven against me," Mr Nairn said after the Lonergan family ended the damages claim.
Rye Holdings, of which Mr Nairn was a director, was fined $27,000 for failing to keep an accurate logbook.
Queensland police said the case was closed.
