Uninhabited 2010

Beth, [Geraldine Hakewill], and Harry, [Henry James], are a young couple and marine biology students who set out for a distinctive ten-day holiday on a deserted coral island off the Great Barrier Reef in Australia. They bring a camcorder to document their adventures, hoping to capture the beauty of isolation and the thrill of a pristine, untouched landscape. The island appears idyllic at first: turquoise waters, white sand, and a sense of escape from their everyday routines. But as the days unfold, the mood slowly shifts from peaceful exploration to a creeping unease that takes root in the island’s quiet history.

From the very first moments, it becomes clear that they are not alone. The couple uncovers signs that the island carries a troubling past: an abandoned grave sits beside an old shack, its walls bearing an old drawing and seven tally marks scratched into the surface. When they review the footage from their own camera, they discover they were filmed while sleeping, a chilling reminder that someone—or something—has been watching them. Beth wants to retreat to safety, but Harry remains curious and stubborn, insisting the strange disturbances are nothing more than pranks by people who know the island well.

The tension intensifies when they glimpse fishermen on a boat armed with guns, a terrifying image that makes the couple question the island’s secrecy. The grave near the shack seems to evolve before their eyes—what began as a simple grave now appears altered, decorated with red coral, and a wooden cross at the head reads “Coral.” The mystery deepens as they encounter two men later identified as Spiro, [Billy Milionis], and Elias, [Terry Siourounis], two lunatic Greek fishermen who orbit the island’s danger in their own volatile way. A sense of being prey rather than visitors settles over the duo as Beth and Harry become targets of suspicion during a search around the crew’s space and their boat, eventually leading to them being tied up and accused of stealing a phone that disappears in the night.

In the wake of the confrontation, Beth is assaulted, an assault that is interrupted by a female ghost who appears and injures one of the men, forcing the fishermen to flee the island by boat. The encounter unsettles both Beth and Harry, erasing any comfort they had found in their theories about pranks and mischief. The following day brings more clues as Beth translates a long-held grief into a clearer understanding: a journal left behind in the shack reveals Coral’s full backstory. Coral was a young island girl who worked for a company harvesting sea cucumbers in the 1920s, the same trade that lingers as a grim thread through the island’s history. The journal explains that Coral stepped on a venomous stone fish, a moment that sparked ridicule and, worse, sexual violence as seven men from the company assaulted her. Her death became a catalyst for a dark vengeance that haunts anyone who visits the island.

With Coral’s history laid bare, Beth begins to confront the moral complexities of vengeance. Harry remains wary, but Beth finds herself drawn to Coral’s perspective, recognizing how a victim’s pain can shape the island’s spectral presence. The two become entangled in a dangerous debate about survival and justice, each contemplating what they might become if they were pushed into Coral’s shoes. The couple recognizes they are in grave danger and decide to attempt a rescue by building a bonfire, hoping a passing boat or a distant signal will reach them.

That plan is interrupted by a single, crushing moment—the ringing of a phone pulls Harry back toward the shack. He confronts Coral in a confrontation that ends with Coral killing him with a knife and hanging his naked body from a tree above her grave. The sight of Harry’s corpse, his blood staining the ground, forces Beth into a stark realization about the island’s violence and the price of curiosity. She faints as the night closes in around the island and the danger becomes physical and immediate.

When morning comes, Beth discovers that most traces of Harry have vanished, save for one grave that has been filled in. As she tends to the bonfire and searches for any sign of rescue, she spots Coral standing on the reef—a chilling reminder that the island’s ghost is more than a memory. Beth lunges toward the water in a bid for safety, only to step on a stone fish herself, the venom coursing through her legs and threatening to seal her fate as she struggles to reach shore. The danger is not over yet; she fights through the pain and makes it back to land, haunted by the knowledge that Coral’s revenge is far from finished.

The island’s timeline shifts as the tenth day arrives. Jackson, [Bob Baines], the man who dropped the couple off, returns to collect them, but no one is seen. He heads toward the shack and discovers the journal resting on a chair, its pages preserving Coral’s centuries-old wound and Beth’s current peril. A fierce, almost elemental struggle unfolds as a primal resolve takes hold in Beth. In the closing beats, she confronts Jackson at the shack; the air is thick with danger, and Beth’s intent is clear, suggesting that she may have killed him. The film closes on a haunting, uneasy note: Beth’s grave appears beside Coral’s, a stark image that implies the two have become kindred spirits in a shared fate. It is a chilling finale that leaves the island’s past and present intertwined, with vengeance, memory, and survival colliding in a landscape where the boundary between the living and the dead seems dangerously porous.

Throughout the ordeal, the island serves as a character in its own right, a place where beauty and menace coexist. The camcorder that once promised to capture pristine discovery becomes a silent witness to a history of exploitation, abuse, and retribution. The haunting of Coral is not just a ghost story; it is a rebuttal to the cruelty that shaped her life, a reminder that the past can reach forward and shape the present in ways that are both visible and unseen. The fate of Beth and Harry hangs in a delicate balance as the tenth day concludes, leaving a lingering question about the line between vengeance and justice, and about what it means for the living to honor the dead when the dead refuse to stay quiet.