Deep Star Six

Turned out to be not as bad a film as I thought when I watched Creatures From the Abyss.

But still, it's not as good as Leviathan.

In fact, it was a little too similar to Leviathan, both coming out about the same time.

But while Leviathan actually looks like it was filmed underwater, and even has scenes taking place in the sea, Deep Star Six often looks blatantly obviously not taking place underwater, but on some miniature models where they haven't even attempted to make it look like it's underwater, it could be in space and it wouldn't have made a damn difference. Even worse is the climax - very very similar to Leviathan's - with some godawful bluescreen FX. Even the monster sucks. The POV made it seem like something real fast and ferocious, like a Megalodon on steroids. What do we see when it finally turns up, the film-makers opting for the Jaws approach of monster movies? A giant lobster-thing. Wow. THAT was what we were supposed to be afraid. A clumsy giant crustacean. At least Leviathan's shape-shifting parasitic beastie, created via Soviet genetic experiment they tried to cover up could be eerie. Like the mouth of sharp teeth that suddenly opens up in one dude's hand.

Another one to avoid. Lords of the Deep. That one came courtesy of Roger Corman's New World Pictures, and I'm pretty darn sure they were reusing sets from Battle Beyond the Stars and Galaxy of Terror again. It sucked. It was like a retarded version of The Abyss.

Endless Descent was OK if you just want simple-minded monster mayhem underwater. Don't let the fact it was directed by the man who gave us Slugs, Pieces, and Pod People put you off.

The Abyss of course stands tall above all the above.

Funny thing though - these films were all pretty much bombs at the box office. The Abyss managed to scrape a bit more of a profit when a special extended version was released, and it was popular on video. All of these are very sci-fi heavy in approach. So along comes some flick called The Hunt for Red October, at the tail end of it, set during the Cold War, more reality-based, with only a smidgen of sci-fi (caterpillar drive), and it pissed all over them when it came to money-making. The FX weren't even that great either. They still look like models, you can still see a little bit of cost-cutting going on (reused shots, stock footage). But I guess people were more willing to accept a Scottish sounding Soviet making off with a big sub than underwater versions of Close Encounters and Alien.