This movie sets out to do something very particular, it also sets out not to do certain things. In short it has a definite premeditated trajectory - to deal with the idea of facing death (with very few choices and all of them bad) as grave and real rather than something casual or amusing. In search of that realism it has eschewed certain conventions such as obvious character arcs and hooks. It not about the characters so much as about the human condition. Never mind what the actors would do... what would YOU do in their situation?
Open Water may have been a starting notion for this movie but it goes a lot further. Unlike that film it doesn't cheat the audience in the end when you find out there aren't really any sharks to speak of at all. This has a real monster, not just the idea of a monster and not just an animated stand in. It also has fine production values given what these very resourceful filmmakers had to work with. And again in contrast to that other film it has some exhilarating and brilliantly rendered action at it's climax. And let's not forget the, shall we say 'dazzling', screen presence of its youngest star. She may prove to be quite a discovery.