A beautiful summer day at the beach turned into a Hollywood style horror story when a New Zealand man was ripped apart by a Great White shark as hundreds of terrified tourists looked on helplessly.

Documentary filmmaker Adam Strange was repeatedly pulled under the water by the 14-foot predator as he struggled to get to the safety of a nearby rock while the water was dyed crimson with his blood, reported Stuff.co.nz.

"All of a sudden, we saw the shark fin and next minute, boom, attack him and then blood every where on the water," said witness Pio Mose, who was fishing at Muriwai Beach near Auckland, around 1.30 pm local time on Wednesday.

Mose attempted to save the stricken swimmer as his friend ran to get help from the coastguards. "He was still alive, he put his head up, we called him to swim over to the rock to where we were. He raised his hand up, and then while he was rising his hand up we saw another attack pull him in the water," he revealed.

The 46-year-old father-of-one bobbed above the surface one more time but onlookers soon realized that he was dead.

Attracted by the scent of blood spreading through the water, four other sharks swooped in to feed on the remains before armed police in a helicopter and an inflatable lifesaving boat arrived and began firing into the water to drive them off.

A regular at the popular beach who was familiar with the dangerous waters, Strange was training for an upcoming Ocean Swim event. "He surfs the beach every day, he loves the ocean" revealed a friend.