(1989) *1/2Having watched Deep Star Six, the other underwater movie that was rushed to release because James Cameron's The Abyss was coming out later that same year, I figured I would be remiss if I skipped this aqua-turkey. I knew I was in for trouble as soon as I saw the dvd menu screen with this crappy dancing CG diving suit on it. Ugh.
You want this to be a stupidly decent (or decently stupid) movie: you've got an underwater mining rig staffed by eclectic kooks who are played by some decent actors: Ernie Hudson, Daniel Stern, Hector Elizondo, Richard Crenna -- and they're led by good ol' Peter Weller, doing a sort of Buckaroo Banzai without the charisma. They happen upon a sunken Russian ship and they grab some stuff to investigate, including the ship's log and various personal effects. As Buckaroo and Richard Crenna read about a mysterious plague that took the Russian crew, two of the Americans take swigs from a nicked flask of vodka.
Unfortunately the flask contains remnants of some Russian experiment to create some kind of fish/human hybrid, an experiment that went so wrong the ship was sunk. What starts as a sickness eventually becomes a transformation into some kind of fish monster, I think. It's amazingly hard to tell. Deep Star Six may have had a weak monster puppet that they couldn't show too much of, but at least they showed enough so that you could see what it looked like. Leviathan's critter is so cheap and bad they rely completely on blurry half-shots and rapid jumps and you really never get an idea of what this thing is (that screenshot below was really hard to catch).
The rules change around: sometimes the biomass creates a larval stage (top), sometimes infected people just suddenly sprout little mouths in their palms. In this way Leviathan rips off both Alien and John Carpenter's The Thing in the lamest way possible. Remember Scuzzlebutt from South Park? The bigfoot-like creature that Cartman tries to scarily describe: "and one of it's legs is...Patrick Duffy!" Well, Leviathan isn't joking when they say that. "And on the side of it's head is...Richard Crenna's head!"
This movie is 1) exceedlingly stingy with the monster and 2) pretty damn boring, either of which are dealbreakers for this kind of flick. In classic ripoff mode, it plods along the path of its betters and doesn't give the world anything new or worthwhile. My favorite example of this happened right after the appearance of that toothsome larva thingie. It wraps itself around the arm of a crewmate, eating into him in a flaccid Alien face-hugger imitation, and Ernie Hudson runs to get help. He seals the door and tells Hector Elizondo to watch it while he fetches Crenna and Buckaroo. When they come back, the metal door has been busted through from inside, and Hector is just returning from down the hall with a weapon in his hands. "I thought I told you to watch the door!" says Ernie. "I'm not watching that thing without some protection!" says Hector. "Hey! That thing is my friend!"
Okay...nobody ever mentions that it's weird that the door has been destroyed by superhuman strength, or that the crewmate went from bloody, panicked victim to powerful monster in about two minutes. Surely this deserves some discussion, no? Or did I just not get my copy of What To Expect when You're Being Stalked by an Underwater Fish Monster?
4 comments:
The drool coming out of the creature’s mouth in the first pic is enough for me to skip this film.
Agreed! Actually, I saw this when it first came out because it was the only film playing at the shitty, small theater in my college "town". Nice review, Octo! Perhaps you should review all water "threat" films in a future Thon (e.g., Orca, The Deep, Jaws, etc).
I recommend skipping "Beneath Still Waters" though...
i saw this at least a dozen times when i was about 13. this was right around the time i read the novelization of navy seals. i thought they were both pretty good.
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