When a movie uses the tagline “Save your last breath… to scream,” one would expect there would be a few scares to be had.
1989 was a good year for fans of underwater science fiction movies. In the span of nine months, three separate movies were released that featured plots that took place under the sea. Probably the most well-known of these films is James Cameron’s The Abyss, which was one of the first Hollywood films to use CGI water effects. But there were two others, Leviathan and DeepStar Six, which were quite a bit more, ahem, thrifty with their special effects budgets by comparison.
DeepStar Six, directed by Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th) and written by Lewis Abernathy and Geof Miller, was the first of the spate of underwater films to hit theaters. The story revolves around a ragtag crew of naval scientists and laborers installing nuclear missiles on the sea floor.
The crew members, commanded by Captain Laidlaw (Taurean Blacque,) are working quickly to get done so they can finish their tour of duty and return to the surface. In their haste to prepare the installation site, they accidentally open an undersea cavern, releasing a large prehistoric crustacean. Of course, the creature begins picking off the crew one-by-one.
Aside from Miguel Ferrer (Robocop), I don’t recall seeing any of the other cast members in anything other than television shows. That said, the performances are not the weakest part of the film. It’s the story that drags the movie down. (Pardon the pun.) Copying the blueprint of Alien (and It! The Terror from Beyond Space before it), there are no real surprises here. Substituting water for the vacuum of space is the only major change between this film and those classics.
Also like Alien, DeepStar Six attempts to create a believable and lived-in atmosphere within the confines of its small sets. It partially succeeds. The set construction is admirably well-done for a film that was made for $8 million. Unfortunately, the attempt at realism boils over into far too many scenes of the crew performing routine actions like flipping switches, shouting out coordinates, and explaining processes that sound laughably made-up. It’s like watching a mechanic change your oil while explaining every action with fictional, vaguely scientific sounding names.
When a movie uses the tagline “Save your last breath… to scream,” one would expect there would be a few scares to be had. Sadly, DeepStar Six isn’t the slightest bit scary. The creature effects are well-done and admirably weird but definitely not scary. In fact, there are more successful attempts at humor than there are scares.
I’ve heard that Sean S. Cunningham wanted to rush the film to beat Leviathan and The Abyss to theaters. While he can claim success at doing so, he also managed to make a competent but quite dull horror movie.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars
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