A still from 'Fear Below'

Fear and flooding: The waterlogged journey to bring Matthew Holmes’ ‘Fear Below’ to screen

In Matthew Holmes’ shark thriller Fear Below, a team of divers are hired to salvage a sunken car from a river in 1940s Australia, only to be thwarted by a highly aggressive bull shark.

The car in the story could serve as a metaphor for the film’s production, which at one point, faced being lost to dangerous waters.

Its world premiere at last month’s Monsterfest, where it won Best Australian Feature, marked the culmination of a more than two-year journey that spanned two states and brought toget...