October 12, 2002

DeepStar Sux

I don't ask for much in a movie. I am an open-minded viewer who likes to wait and see what trick the director is going to pull out of his hat. During DeepStar Six I waited … and waited … and waited … and waited … and waited. This is due to the fact that the ads for the movie promised an underwater Aliens-type adventure and mostly gave me television actors wondering around soaking wet set and bickering with one another. This wouldn't bother so much if the movie hadn't promised impressive monsters. I think I got scammed because the monstrosity turned out to be the movie itself.

Directed by Friday the 13th creator Sean Cunningham, the movie takes place on a research platform on the ocean floor as a group of scientists and engineers work on a plan for dynamiting a cave to mount a missle platform. This would be all well and good except for the fact that they have parked their college butts on top of the cave. Whatever is living underneath that cave is stirred and causes trouble for everyone on board. This includes an endless series of shouting matches between the actors that made me want to recommend group therapy. I promise you, there is a shouting match at least once every ten minutes or so. Look, I know they're trapped underwater but these people need serious counseling. So much that I wouldn't have been surprised if one of them suddenly broke down in tears with "my father was a cold and heartless tyrant!"

Maybe it was the actor's frustrations coming out. The cast is made up of television actors Taurean Blaque from "Hill Street Blues", Greg Evigan from "My Two Dads", Cindy Picket from "St. Elsewhere", Thom Bray from "Riptide". All are good but walk around with the look of people trying to finish up the last lousy acting job in a six-picture contract. I didn't want to spend any more time with them then day did with each other.

DeepStar Six was the first of three underwater adventure movies released in 1989. It came before the snoozy Leviathan and before the wonderful (but underrated) The Abyss. As mentioned before, DS6 is billed as a monster movie but the monster stays hidden until the last five minutes and even then only shows up for one giant leap before he gets blow'd up real good.

The movie's death scenes are mostly made up of accidents, off-screen attacks and weird deaths that happen out of a lack of common sense. Case in point is when the movie's villain (Miguel Ferrer) decides to steal the last escape pod without pressurizing it. Ewwwww! Not such a big loss because he is also the moron who blew up all the big explodey weapons and crippled the platform thus not allowing anyone to surface. Personally, I would like to see the deleted scenes of this movie, you know, the ones where everyone apparently banged their heads on the bulkhead doors causing them to lose their sense of common, or their taste of good.