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Mandy Moore fears drowning in 47 Meters Down

More than 40 years ago, Jaws scared the daylights out of a generation of ocean swimmers.

Hollywood is hoping for a repeat with the adventure-horror film 47 Meters Down, which opens here tomorrow.

The movie takes place almost entirely under water. Sisters Lisa and Kate, played by Mandy Moore and Claire Holt, are on vacation in Mexico and hear about cage diving with sharks from the locals.

They climb aboard the ship of Captain Taylor, who attracts the sharks by pouring blood into the sea. The cable holding the cage with the sisters breaks and the cage drops to the ocean floor.

The women find themselves in the dark with less than an hour of air in their oxygen tanks, surrounded by hungry sharks.

"What I found far more terrifying is the prospect of drowning, of running out of air," Moore said. "That is my biggest fear... far more terrifying than sharks, which are terrifying enough."

British director Johannes Roberts decided that once they plunged into the ocean, there was no need for scenes on the surface.

"Imagine if in Gravity, you kept cutting to ground control. It would have killed the movie," he said, referring to the 2013 Oscar-winning film about astronauts stranded in space.

Moore and Holt spent eight hours a day for eight weeks inside a 6m-deep water tank.

"We did not realise how physically taxing it was going to be, all that time underwater," Moore said. "We were kind of guinea pigs because no one knew what effects eight weeks every day under water would have."

Holt said: "I was pretty nervous. But we had great people taking care of us." - AFP

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