By Dewey Truman
Special to YNOT

HOLLYWOOD – They say you can’t judge a book by its cover, but in my experience, you can and should judge a movie by the headlines of its reviews.

This being the case, I must say I’m really, really looking forward to seeing The Shallows, a movie I had at first assumed was about a clique of high school kids who spend all their time creating and watching fashion and makeup-pointer videos on YouTube, but which I now know to be a bestial BDSM “torture porn” flick.

I can’t even begin to tell you how much this revelation changes my level of optimism for this film. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I wanted to watch a shark eat the lovely Blake Lively when I thought this event was to be depicted as a literal occurrence.

Although it might strain the boundaries of my ability to suspend disbelief, I’m looking forward to seeing what sort of torturous machinations the shark comes up with for his gorgeous young submissive — and indeed, how he manages to deliver the punishment, being confined to the water as he presumably is.

Then again, obviously the waters involved here are shallow, hence the name of the film, so I suppose the shark could just balance himself on his caudal fin, grasp a whip (or maybe a catfish o’ nine tails) with his pectoral and go to town whupping Ms. Lively’s tight, skinny ass.

By the way, I’d like to take a moment here to acknowledge the female lead’s brilliant screen name, “Blake Lively.” This cheery-sounding porn moniker is just so much more original than simply slapping any old chick’s name in front of the surname “Lynn,” or positioning herself as yet another “Sasha” or “Lexi” or “Brianna.”

On the other hand, I’m not sure “Blake Lively” is the sort of porn name one expects to encounter in a torture porn movie in which the other featured performer is a shark. I might have gone with something a little more exotic and unusual, like “Scrotella Demure,” or “Isadora Pinstripes,” or if I were Asian, “Masticata Chu.”

Although I’m now looking forward to seeing the movie (ideally in 3D, which I think will really enhance the inevitable cumshot), I do have concerns about whether watching the same shark and the same chick go at it for an entire movie can really hold my interest.

Why not bring in some more human and aquatic talent to mix things up a bit? I hear Tara Reid is desperate for work these days. Why not retain her to deliver a golden shower to some sort of mollusk — or vice versa?

Also, had I written and cast The Shallows, I think I would have structured the plot so Lively’s character works her way up to being the shark’s submissive, possibly even starting out with some non-BDSM action to warm up the audience and to give her character some sort of sexual progress-arc to follow throughout the film.

Instead of jumping right into bondage sessions with Master Shark, maybe I’d have Lively start small, say with a rock squirrel. From there, maybe she could experiment with some light paddling to her bottom performed by a badger or other mid-size mammal.

My point here goes back to realism and suspension of disbelief. As I see it, it’s one thing to ask the audience not to question the idea of a woman and a shark pairing up for some bondage play, but quite another to expect me to believe this nice young girl goes straight from normal, unadventurous sex with some milquetoast Canadian motherfucker like Ryan Reynolds to lacing up a leather SCUBA corset for a riotous roll in the saltwater hay with Left Shark’s bigger, meaner, far toothier cousin.

Still, despite these minor defects, I have to say I’m waiting with baited breath for The Shallows to hit my local aquarium. Believe me, it will be a welcome replacement for the one-man, two-fish synchronized swimming revue that Connor Paolo kid has been doing ever since Revenge got cancelled.

Dewey Truman is a freelance investigative journalist who is so busy compiling and analyzing facts, he doesn’t have time to actually read any of the sources from which he gathers said facts.