DeepStar Six (1989) TriStar/Sci-Fi-Horror RT: 99 minutes Rated R (violence and language) Director: Sean S. Cunningham Screenplay: Lewis Abernathy and Geof Miller Music: Harry Manfredini Cinematography: Mac Ahlberg Release date: January 13, 1989 (US) Cast: Taurean Blacque, Nancy Everhard, Greg Evigan, Miguel Ferrer, Matt McCoy, Nia Peeples, Cindy Pickett, Marius Weyers, Elya Baskin, Thom Bray, Ronn Carroll. Box Office: $8.1M (US)
Rating: * ½
If you follow my reviews, you probably know that I refer to the movie year 1989 as “They Came from Beneath the Sea”. No less than three major releases centered on underwater terror. First out of the gate was DeepStar Six, a dull, drippy fright flick in which the hapless crew of an underwater military outpost faces off against a giant sea monster. Directed by Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th), it could have been fun, but it’s rendered lame by a weak storyline and snail-like pacing. It takes more than an hour for the monster to make his first appearance. That’s just too long for a movie that has little else to offer.
While installing an underwater nuclear missile base, the crew of scientific facility DeepStar Six discovers a large underground cavern underneath the site. Rather than let resident biologist Scarpelli (Peeples, North Shore) explore it first, project leader Van Gelder (Weyers, The Gods Must Be Crazy) decides to collapse it with explosive charges instead. It creates a massive fissure which frees a large something that proceeds to create destruction and panic among the crew as they prepare for an emergency evacuation to the surface.
The crew also includes Captain Laidlaw (Blacque, Hill Street Blues), sub pilot McBride (Evigan, BJ and the Bear), scientist Collins (Everhard, The Punisher), co-pilot Richardson (McCoy, Police Academy 5), physician Norris (Pickett, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off), technician Snyder (Ferrer, RoboCop), geologist Burciaga (Baskin, Moscow on the Hudson) and co-pilots Hodges (Bray, Prince of Darkness) and Osborne (Carroll, Friday the 13th). McBride and Collins are romantically involved. Richardson and Scarpelli are sexually involved. Snyder is the unstable one; he’s this movie’s answer to Bill Paxton’s character in Aliens. That’s really all you need to know about the characters, not that the screenplay offers much in the way of development anyway.
Given the utter lack of character depth, it stands to reason that the actors can’t do too much with their roles other than recite their dialogue and die on cue. To say we have only the vaguest idea of what any character is about is an overstatement. They’re merely fish lined up for the slaughter. That’s right, most of them don’t make it to the end, but did you actually expect otherwise? DeepStar Six is, if nothing else, completely predictable. There’s not a single scare or thrill you won’t see coming from 20,000 leagues away.
I wanted to like DeepStar Six. It has all the earmarks of great late 80s entertainment staring with the Carolco logo, usually a sure sign that what you’re about to see will entertain your ass off. I always got a thrill from seeing the names Mario Kassar and Andrew Vajna appear in the opening credits of action-oriented movies. In addition to being directed by Cunningham, his F13 collaborator Harry Manfredini provides the score. Okay, it doesn’t have a big name like Schwarzenegger or Stallone in the lead but if Evigan can hold his own against a funny chimp, he can surely deal with a murderous sea monster (whose name isn’t Sigmund, btw). And what can I say about Peeples? She’s HOT! ANYWAY, all of this amounts to nothing. The makers forgot to make DeepStar Six scary or even interesting. It’s BORING AS HELL!
The only nice thing I can think of to say about DeepStar Six is that the monster, initially designed by Chris Walas (The Fly) who handed the reins over to Mark Shostrom (From Beyond), doesn’t look too bad. The only problem is we don’t get a good look at it. On the upside, it’s not CGI. There are at least two half-decent gory scenes, but for the most part it’s fairly stingy with the red stuff.
DeepStar Six was followed by Leviathan and The Abyss, both of which are markedly better than this tepid monster movie. Hell, even the DTV releases Lords of the Deep and Endless Descent are better than this. You know what, I’ll make it simple. In the vernacular of my teen years, DeepStar Six sucks!
