What was missing...

...for me the film was really good, and a great, thrilling "humans vs. nature"/ creature feature flick. It was very entertaining and enjoyable.

But I thought they could have spent a little more time on the setup, getting to know the main character and her family, establishing their strained relationship maybe more slickly. They did a good job getting quite a lot of exposition slipped in on the phone call at the pool, but it just gave me information. I wished for more scenes like the one of the father pulling the daughter out of the pool and hugging her. I wished I could have known the mother at all.

Without more emotional connection to the family, the real truth of the story, the strained relationship at play between father and daughter, isn't as gripping as the gator stuff. It should actually be *more* important to the viewer, I think. Had the film managed that, it would have rocketed past "horror-thriller" and into something truly magnificent.