Capsized: Blood in the Water

***Capsized: Blood in the Water*** is an American biographical natural survival horror film based on a true story from 1982. It is the first scripted Shark Week feature film and debuted on the Discovery Channel as an exclusive to the annual weekly event on July 31, 2019.

## Plot

On October 22, 1982, the yacht known as the Trashman pulls into Annapolis, Maryland for a routine transfer. The crew, consisting of Captain John Lippoth, Deborah "Deb" Scaling-Kiley, Mark Adams, and John's girlfriend Meg Mooney, are joined by Brad Cavanaugh in their journey to Florida. During the journey, John tells Brad that he has to decide what kind of man he wants to be. As night comes in, the U.S. Coast Guard receives information of two storms blowing in from the west and into the gulf stream and send out a warning to all ships in the area. However, the crew of the Trashman fail to get the report as Mark had fallen asleep at the radio after getting drunk and is thus caught in the storm. Meg is injured when the kitchen stove's door falls open and cuts her leg, leaving Brad to tend to her. John sends an SOS signal to the Coast Guard, who send out two ships to help. But as the wait while last three hours, John, not wanting to risk the changes of Meg getting infection, tries to steer the Trashman towards shore when a tidal wave hits, capsizing the yacht and leaving the crew stranded in the ocean with an upturned raft.

The next day, after the storm has ended, the crew realize they are being surrounded by tiger sharks drawn by the blood from Meg's injured leg. In their desperation to climb out of the water, the raft is accidentally flipped over, and the crew has to pull a panicking Mark off after he climbed onto it, barely escaping. The sharks, attracted by their panicked noises and movements, begin ramming the bottom of the boat, but John manages to calm everyone down and convince them to wait until help arrives. After thirty-one hours adrift, John tries to use a belt to tie off circulation poke a hole in Meg's leg to drain it of infection. When Meg's cries of pains begin to draw the sharks into ramming the boat, Mark grabs the belt and throws it into the ocean in a panic, causing John to angrily grab and begin strangling Mark before the others pull him off. Mark puts the blame on John for their situation. The next day, John jumps into the water after spotting an island and begins swimming towards it; however, he realizes that it is just a mirage when the others begin calling him back, but a shark attacks and pulls him under before the others can pull him back into the raft.

After fifty-nine hours adrift, the remaining survivors begin to suffer from dehydration. Mark starts drinking the sea water despite everyone's protests. By the following day, he begins to start screaming and irrationally pounding the bottom of the boat, attracting a tiger shark, even when Brad attempts to calm him down. The shark knocks Mark out of the raft and drags him underwater, where he becomes trapped under the bottom of the raft and is killed. By nightfall, Meg has succumbed to infection; by the next morning, she is dead. Brad and Deb place her body into the water as part of an ocean burial, leaving the sharks to feed on her corpse.

After a hundred and nine hours adrift, Brad and Deb decide to flip the raft over to drain it of blood and dirty water, in spite of the fact that doing so means the risk of attracting more sharks. However, Brad begins to show signs of weakening, forcing Deb to pull him into the raft before a tiger shark can take him. On the sixth day, the pair spot an approaching Soviet tanker and jump in to swim towards it. Brad makes it to the ship but swims back for Deb when she falls behind and sinks, leaving her an open target for the sharks. The ship starts blowing its horn, frightening away the sharks and buying time for the sailors to pull Brad and Deb out of the water.

An epilogue reveals that Brad and Deb spent eight days in the hospital for treatment of dehydration and starvation. Deb went on to have a successful career, authoring three books of her experiences before her death in 2012, while Brad spent several years dealing with his trauma of the experience. The film ends on a modern-day shot of Brad sailing his boat along the same route taken by the *Trashman*.

## Cast

* Tyler Blackburn as Brad Cavanaugh
* Beau Garrett as Deborah "Deb" Scaling-Kiley
* Josh Close as Mark Adams
* Rebekah Graf as Meg Mooney
* Josh Duhamel as Capt. John Lippoth

## Production

Following the summer staple's thirtieth anniversary, "there was a lot of discussion around, 'How do we build on this success?'" says Howard Starz, Discovery senior vice president of production and development. "So we decided to do something out of the box." In 2019, Discovery Channel announced the scheduled release for the thirty-first season of Shark Week, with *Capsized: Blood in the Water* listed among its release as A Shark Week Film, the first of its kind. During the press release, the network stated that basing the film on a true story was congruent with the program's educational nature. Staying true to the historical facts, featuring tiger sharks (an oceanic predator with a reputation for eating anything), and with the statistical average number of six fatal shark attacks per year, the network stated it would refrain from demonizing sharks.

### Filming

Production took place in the Dominican Republic, at the Pinewood Studios location on the islands.

Much of the photography took place with the cast treading in a 2.4-million-gallon tank. Crew members reportedly worked for hours in the scorching heat, upon metal catwalks constructed over the large tank. The tank was filled with chest-high water, where the actors dramatized the film's events. Sharks were added to the scenes during post-production through use of CGI special effects.

### Music

The film's score was provided by Extreme Music, a music production company subsidiary of Sony Entertainment, Inc.

## Reception

The film was well received by critics praising it for its realistic portrayal of survival and noted its educational value. Special effects and use of real shark footage was noted, while differences in the story were pointed out. Other reviews noted the effective use of tension, and suspenseful thriller aspects. Some reviews acknowledged the network's intention to keep from depicting the sharks as villainous as effective; even noting that actors within the film were successfully scared by the artificial sharks used during the attack scenes.