Netflix Movie Club: This Week’s Pick Is Aussie Thriller ‘Sanctum’!

Netflix is basically my life off of tour. When I have nothing to do and all of my friends who have normal 9-5 jobs are too sleepy to hangout, I turn to my BFF, Netflix (sometimes supplemented by my other BFF, Lifetime Movie Network). Anyway, wading through Netflix is almost more time consuming then watching the actual movie you pick. We’ve all been in that place where we spend an hour trying to decide what to watch, only to turn it off after 45 minutes when we realize it sucks.

I’m here to help you out. Since I’ve got some time on my hands, I’ve decided to make a new feature for my blog – The Weekly Netflix Club. I’ll give you an awesome new flick to watch every week, and you will tell me what you thought about film and give me your weekly recommendation in the comments section. Some of these films will be my old favorites, some of them will be new to Netflix, and some of them may be really obscure. I’ll try my best to shy away from things I think everyone has seen before (classics like Mean Girls or Clueless, whose quotes have already slipped into our everyday vernacular) and focus on stuff you might have missed.

This leads to this week’s movie which is the best thing I’ve seen on Netflix in a while: Sanctum.

Sanctum is an Australian action/thriller set in an underwater cave exploration site in Papua New Guinea. It focuses on a team of divers lead by Frank McGuire, a master diver who has been exploring the cave system for months. The team also includes his 17-year-old son, who disagrees with his methods of cave diving; George, an experienced diver who acts as Frank’s right-hand man; and financier Carl and his girlfriend, as well as a couple of other crew members. When the movie starts, the team has already set up a base camp somewhere inside of the cave after a presumably long expedition. This is where things go horribly wrong, and the team is forced to navigate their way out of the complicated and unexplored underwater cave system.

Sanctum isn’t a ground-breaking movie. It’s pretty much standard for a survival-of-the-fittest type thriller; however, the personal relationships developed amongst characters (particularly between father and son) is where this movie excels. It tests the length at which a person would go to help a teammate in need and explores the crew’s very different set of morals, which are ever-changing when their lives are at stake.

In addition to the drama brought in by the characters, this movie is filled with the nerve-wracking moments that turn an okay thriller into a great thriller. What do you do when you’re running out of light and air in a pitch black, underwater cave? No wonder, most of these scenes had me feeling uncomfortably claustrophobic and absurdly anxious. I think I even held my breath for part of the movie. The entire plot is riddled with more twists than the tunnels they’re navigating, and the scenery throughout is beautiful and haunting.

This movie is exactly what I’d expect from Executive Producer James Cameron, who’s already well-versed in survival-of-the-fittest stories where the fittest may not always be the people you love (I’m looking at you Titanic).

Tl;dr: If you’re looking for a good thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat and makes you feel a ton of mushy, weepy and anxious feels, I highly recommend it.

Stream it instantly on Netflix, and tell me your movie recommendation in the comments!