The Monster of Piedras Blancas (1959)

What would a version of The Creature from the Black Lagoon look like if the filmmakers had no money? It was the lack of proper funds that faced producer Jack Kevan and director Irvin Berwick back in 1959 when they made their independently produced creature feature, one that showcased a monster of a rather dubious parentage in a film that could best be described as “Amateur Hour at the Black Lagoon” but that’s not to say this film didn’t try really hard make its case.

When it comes to monster attacks nothing is more attractive to the average aquatic creature than a small coastal town and that is the setting for Irvin Berwick’s The Monster of Piedras Blancas, a story that pits a small community against a ravenous beast. The film starts off with a bit of a mystery, two boys are found decapitated and drained of blood but there are no real clues as to how this happened. With useless Constable George Matson (Forest Lewis) in charge of the investigation things don’t look good, especially with the local grocer, Kochek (Frank Arvidson), spreading rumours all over town that a legendary monster is behind these horrible deaths. With Doc Jorgenson (Les Tremayne) and local science nerd Fred (Don Sullivan) on the case there’s a slim chance they will uncover the truth, that is if Fred can take time away from hanging out with his sweetheart Lucille Sturgess (Jeanne Carmen) long enough for them to do some actual science.

 

I’m sure their love will last from here to eternity.

The big question here has to do with Lucille’s father, Sturges (John Harmon), who is the town’s lighthouse keeper and is the one man who seems to know something about these killings.  Most of the townsfolk don’t like Sturges, which is easy to understand as he’s kind of crotchety and a little too solitary even for a lighthouse keeper, but what is odd is that with people dropping like flies Sturges seems more concerned about is his daughter Lucille hanging out with good ole Fred and whether or not she is swimming at night. Which to be fair, isn’t something you should do on a rocky coastline. Well, it turns out that people have a right to be suspicious of him because he’s been secretly feeding a monster that lives in a cave down below his lighthouse and he’s been doing this for years.  And what possible reason could have have for doing such a thing? Turns out that it makes him feel less lonely.  While his justification for keeping this a secret is a bit thin, and also a little strange, what isn’t thin is the fact that his failure to mention said creature to the populace does make him rather culpable in the deaths of his fellow citizens.

 

My Pet Monster.

Stray Observations:

• I know this town is small but dragging two corpses through the grocery store to put them in the cooler seems a little unsanitary even for a hick town like this. Wouldn’t it have been better to take them straight to the doctor’s or the local funeral parlour?
• I can sort of respect a monster that rips people’s heads off but a heavy breather who steals women’s clothing, while they’re skinny dipping even, that’s going too far.
• Fred and Doc Jorgenson come to the conclusion that the creature’s blood lust stems from its reptilian nature.  This is an interesting theory but I don’t know of any reptile that completely drains its victims of blood. I’m starting to doubt their scientific credentials.
• The creature in this film is quite the “Frankenstein Monster” as it has the feet and lower torso from the “Metaluna Mutant” in This Island Earth and the claws from the creatures in The Mole People.
• Fred comes up with the brilliant idea of capturing the creature alive, using a ten-foot-wide rope net, but that doesn’t seem all that plausible for catching a monster with razor-like claws and immense strength. Fred from the Scooby-Doo franchise has thought up better traps than this on his worst day.
• The abilities of the monster are never made very clear, after the first kill one of the townsfolk comments “Never seen anything like it in my life, heads ripped clean off” but later Doc Jorgenson compares the wounds to those made by a guillotine and later it is said that the killer is removing the heads with surgical precision.

 

Does this look like someone who is practising surgery?

Some people will be a little disappointed that the title creature doesn’t make an appearance until the 50-minute mark, which isn’t great when you consider the fact that the film is barely over 70 minutes long, but I do give the filmmakers credit for giving us a particularly brutal monster movie, one with some surprisingly graphic moments that were not too common in films of this era – seeing decapitated heads was far from the norm at this point in time – and while the monster itself is a bit of a weird hybrid of other cinematic creatures it’s still an effective threat to this town of wholly unprepared people. That said, one story element I found to be a bit off was that throughout the film the monster has been ripping off heads and draining bodies of all of their blood, presumably because Sturges missed one day of feeding, but when it meets Lucille it strangely instigates the standard 50s monster trope of running off with the girl, instead of just eating her on the spot, like he did with everyone else.

 

Was this his idea of take-out?

Watching this film it’s hard to believe it was produced with a budget of under $30,000 as it looks quite good and the cast of actors they wrangled together, if not top-tier, were all more than capable of pulling off their respective jobs. The black and white cinematography by Philip Lathrop nicely captured this quaint seaside town and the cobbled-together monster suit by Jack Kevan, who had worked under Bud Westmore on The Creature from the Black Lagoon, may not have a lot of screen time but it was still quite serviceable as any monster of that type. The film’s biggest failing is in the script by H. Haile Chace, as not only does it fail to explain just where the monster originated from or its motivations, which are dubious at best aside from an obvious need for wanton murder.  We do get Fred and the Doc theorizing about it being a mutation of the extinct diplovertebron but why it’s ripping off heads, chugging blood and then leaving the rest of the body behind is anyone’s guess. While this genre is often overburdened with scientists spouting off reams exposition it would have been nice to get a little clarification as to what the hell was going on.

 

“Sir, what we have here is a piece of the missing script.”

For a film with this low of a budget, and we are talking about an amount that what would be pocket change for a major studio, the end product was better than to be expected. The monster was kind of cool if a bit borrowed and if the script had been a little more fleshed out this could have been another 50s classic monster movie, sadly, what we got was a solid attempt that didn’t quite make it to the finish line.

Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) – Review

What can you do if your science fiction film doesn’t quite have the budget to pull off a proper alien invasion? Easy, just shift the tone into the arena of comedy so that the audience is laughing “with you” instead of at the cheesy special effects on display.  This is exactly what happened with Edward L. Cahn’s Invasion of the Saucer Men, but the real question is did this tactic work?

The movie opens on a book with an interesting disclaimer stating that this is “A true story of flying saucers” which made me check the date of this movie’s release to make sure it wasn’t written by the Coen Brothers. Sadly, it wasn’t. This film was actually based on the 1955 short story “The Cosmic Frame” by Paul W. Fairman and it tells the exciting tale of teenagers vs. aliens – while that doesn’t sound like a Coen Brothers movie I’d sure love to see John Turturro and Francis McDormand facing off against an alien invasion – which was your standard Drive-In fair of the 1950s. The plot of this sci-fi entry unravels over a single night with con man Joe Gruen (Frank Gorshin) witnessing the arrival of flying saucers and him deciding to investigate as this could lead to “Big Money.” While Joe is very excited about the prospect of meeting some aliens his partner, Art Burns (Lyn Osborn), is more concerned with getting a good night’s sleep then he is in investigating an “alien” encounter.

 

“Riddle me this, what has green skin and flies?”

Joe isn’t the only one about to have a close encounter as we’ve also got a teenage couple, Johnny Carter (Steven Terrell) and Joan Hayden (Gloria Castillo), who accidentally run down one of the saucer’s large-headed occupants while driving to their local lover’s lane. This is due to the fact that they were driving without their headlights on so not to alert crotchety Farmer Larkin (Raymond Hatton) to their trespassing on his land.  This is where things get interesting. When Joe stumbles across the alien corpse he also sees future riches, but instead of receiving fame and fortune he is attacked by the dead aliens’ buddies who use their little finger needles to inject enough alcohol into his blood stream to kill him. The aliens then remove their dead companion from the scene of the crime and replace it with Joe’s corpse, basically framing Johnny and Joan with vehicular manslaughter. This is definitely not your typical alien encounter. There are no national monuments being blown up or even the threat of a good anal probing, but worst of all, when the movie ends we never do find out what in the hell these little bastards were doing on Earth in the first place. Did they come for some kind of intergalactic kegger?

 

Question: Is alcohol poisoning more effective than a death ray?

Stray Observations:

• This film was released as part of a double bill alongside I Was a Teenage Werewolf, with the tagline “We DARE You To See The Most Amazing Pictures of Our Time!” which is quite the gutsy claim and pretty much tells you all you need to know about this film’s quality.
• The town’s “Lovers Lane” was co-opted by farmer Larkin as a pasture but that doesn’t stop the local teens from necking amongst the cow paddies. I guess when your town is literally called Hicksburg you have to make do with what’s available.
• Colonel Ambrose is bitter over the fact that the Army scooped them during the last flying saucer encounter, which goes to show you that departmental rivalries know no bounds, even intergalactic ones.
• I love the military’s blasé approach to their Close Encounters of the Third Kind, treating the arrival of a flying saucer as nothing more than a routine Friday night. That these aliens are a trick-or-treating menace doesn’t even seem all that important.
• To be fair to the military, these particular aliens don’t appear all that menacing, with members of this “invasion force” being taken out by a couple of teenagers driving without headlights and a bull with a fondness for beer. Why develop some fancy weapon to kill these aliens when a Ford Pontiac will do just as well?

 

Aliens are notoriously lax at looking both ways before crossing the street.

There is not a lot of plot to be found in Invasion of the Saucer Men 69-minute running time as it consists mostly of a bunch of idiots stumbling through the woods – this includes the stupid aliens – but we do get the standard generation gap conflict between teens and authority, with the police not believing Johnny and Joan about little green men. Then we also have the subplot concerning the military’s investigation of the landed flying saucer, but that circles the drain for awhile before exploding in a burst of flames – apparently trying to cut through the hull of a flying saucer with an acetylene torch is not a good idea – because these aliens didn’t spend the extra money to get one of those invulnerable flying saucers found in The Day the Earth Stood Still. So even if our teen heroes didn’t defeat these little buggers they were still stranded on Earth.

 

Do aliens have some kind of roadside assistance that they can call?

I’ll give it to the filmmakers that the aliens in this outing are decidedly creepy, and special effects technician Paul Blaisdel did a great job in creating this particular alien menace and the disembodied hand of the dead one roaming around gets bonus points for creativity, but while this film was originally intended as a serious science fiction/horror film it gradually developed into a comedy and the score by Ronald Stein sounds more like a sitcom to the point that you almost expect to hear a laugh track.  It all comes across as weird and out of place.

 

“Car 54 where are you?”

This isn’t a particularly bad film but it has more in common with the Bowery Boys movies that populated cinemas of the 30s and 40s as those movies also dealt with teens coming together to solve various mysteries, without the help of grown-ups or authority figures.  We also have to deal with actors who we are supposed to believe are teenagers when they are clearly in the late twenties or early thirties. Overall, this is a decent little entry and the film’s brevity works in its favour, with the end result being a fun if weird little outing that manages to entertain despite itself.

Lords of the Deep (1989) – Review

The year was 1989 and we were flooded with a lot of underwater movies, all hoping to catch the summer box office prize, unfortunately, legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman was late to the party with his film Lords of the Deep so this entry never even made it out of the kiddie pool.

Directed by Mary Ann Fisher, this underwater thriller takes audiences on an ambitious journey into the depths of the ocean, filled with mysterious creatures, tense encounters and a quest for survival, sadly, the ambitions on hand were not met by either talent or budget and the end result was less than stellar, and by that I mean bad acting and even worse special effects. The film starts off with a premise that sounds intriguing on paper: a team of scientists stationed at an underwater research facility discover strange and mysterious occurrences in the depths of the ocean. At this point, that’s almost expected. However, any semblance of promise is quickly washed away by the abysmal acting and poorly written characters and some of the worst visual effects ever produced.

 

Cue murky shots of “underwater” miniatures.

The “plot” Lords of the Deep has to with dwindling resources and mankind turning to deep sea exploration and developing undersea habitation in the hope of “conquering a new frontier” and one of the key players in this is biologist Dr. Claire McDowell (Priscilla Barnes) who is suddenly plagued with psychic visions – yeah, it’s going to be that kind of movie – due to her handling of a strange undersea specimen, but things get complicated when a sub carrying the next lot of crew replacements is lost during an undersea quake. One of the crewmen, who is sent out to repair damages, is seemingly transformed into a gelatinous mass which then proceeds to mutate into a man-sized stingray-like creature. But what possible agenda could this thing have? And who is the real enemy here? Wait, it’s man, isn’t it?

 

“Life under the sea is better than anything they got up there.”

Anyone who has seen James Cameron’s The Abyss will quickly realize that these creatures are benevolent aliens and have chosen Claire as their “first contact” and that the head of the facility, Commander Dobler (Bradford Dillman), is the film’s actual antagonist as his secret agenda is to murder off anyone member of his crew who questions his orders – think low-rent Captain Queeg with delusions of being Captain Bligh – and he manages to accomplish much of this mayhem by ordering the facilities computer to lock anyone he considers a threat in a room that would then be purged of all oxygen. To say the sight of idiot crewmembers screaming at the computer while gasping for air was less than thrilling would be a vast understatement, and Bradford Dillman as the madman in charge gives a performance that is both over-the-top and pathetic at the same time.

 

Someone needed to shut the pod bay doors on him.

Stray Observations:

• The movie opens with text stating “In the Year 2020 – Man has used up and destroyed most of Earth’s resources.” Not a completely accurate prediction of the future, but not too far off.
• One of the crew dons a “pressure suit” to go outside the deep-sea facility to work on repairs, but unless technology in the far-flung year of 2020 is radically different than what we have today it looks like he’s simply wearing basic scuba gear.
• The crew tries and monitor and track the alien lifeform as it travels through the facility’s air ducts, because why not rip off Ridley Scott’s Alien? It’s kind of Roger Corman’s thing?
• One of the crew has to deactivate the murderous computer because if you are going to rip off a sci-fi classic like Alien why not also crib from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey?
• Ever the penny-pincher, producer Roger Corman later reused all the underwater shots and effects from this movie for Unknown Origin aka The Alien Within, in 1994.
• Claire experiments with an unknown specimen by closing her eyes and sticking her hand into it. Are we sure she’s a scientist, did anyone check her credentials?

 

“Why, you’re soaking in it now.”

Roger Corman’s Lords of the Deep tried desperately to emulate classic underwater horror films like The Abyss or Leviathan but falls woefully short in every aspect and couldn’t even compete against low-budget fare like DeepStar Six. Instead of invoking a sense of wonder and fear, it left viewers wondering why you wasted precious hours of your life on such a train wreck. From the laughably bad special effects, which looked like they were created by a toddler with a crayon and the poorly rendered underwater creatures resembled something out of a cheap ’80s video game, and they elicited more laughs than scares. The filmmakers probably hoped to create a tense and terrifying atmosphere, but instead, they ended up with an unintentional comedy. Adding insult to injury, the soundtrack is an irritating assault on the ears. The incessant and poorly composed synthesizer score tries to mimic the atmosphere of classic horror films, but instead, it feels like nails on a chalkboard. A more fitting title for this disaster would be “Lords of the Awful Soundtrack.”

 

“I think our budget just sank to the bottom of the sea.”

The performances from the cast were equally abysmal, showcasing a level of talent that can only be described as non-existent. The actors stumbled through their lines with all the enthusiasm of a lethargic sea slug, delivering dialogue so cringe-worthy that it makes you question whether or not they even read the script before signing up for this disaster. The film’s pacing is no better as it oscillates between moments of unbearable boredom and scenes that are so inexplicably chaotic that you’ll lose all interest in following the story. The editing appears to have been done by a sleep-deprived intern, with jarring cuts and disjointed sequences that make it impossible to get invested in the film’s events. Clocking in at a meagre 78 minutes it still manages to be a slog to get through, which is a testament to bad filmmaking.

 

“What are the odds of James Cameron suing us?”

In conclusion, Lords of the Deep is an embarrassment to the horror genre and a prime example of the failure of filmmaking at every level. It’s a sci-fi horror entry that belongs at the bottom of the ocean, never to resurface again. You can only feel a little pity as you see these actors sleepwalking through their roles, delivering lines with all the enthusiasm of plankton drifting aimlessly in the current. Save yourself the agony of watching this sinking ship and steer clear of this cinematic disaster.

Leviathan (1989) – Review

Directed by George P. Cosmatos, this film takes viewers on an underwater adventure that attempted to combine the creature-feature thrills of John Carpenter’s Thing with that of claustrophobic tension of Ridley Scott’s Alien, in an underwater horror entry that, despite its viscous sea monsters who relentlessly stalk our valiant heroes, the true victim of this flick was originality.

Set in the not-so-distant future, the story revolves around a group of deep-sea miners working for a powerful corporation called Tri-Oceanic Corp. Our cast of characters includes crew Steven Beck (Peter Weller), ill-mannered Buzz “Sixpack” Parish (Daniel Stern), the film’s chief damsel-in-distress “Willie” Williams (Amanda Pays), next is the grizzled but lovable G. P. Cobb (Hector Elizondo), followed by the “I’m black and will definitely not survive this” Justin Jones (Ernie Hudson), next is Switzerland obsessed Tony “DeJesus” Rodero (Michael Carmine), and then there is the film’s other damsels Bowman (Lisa Eilbacher), unfortunately for her we can only have one Final Girl so she won’t survive either, and finally we have the crew’s doctor, Glen “Doc: Thompson (Richard Crenna), a man who may have heard of the Hippocratic Oath but only in passing.

“I don’t think this is a case of the flu.”

Their mission is to extract valuable resources from the ocean floor, however, what starts as a routine operation quickly turns into a nightmarish battle for survival when Sixpack accidentally discovers a mysterious sunken Soviet shipwreck and brings a little contraband back to their facility. Turns out that the sunken ship “Leviathan” was doing some experimenting on its unwitting crew with mutagens and genetic alterations and the ship was scuttled when an experiment went got out of control – which is to be expected whenever “mad science” is involved – and when Sixpack shares a flask of vodka he had snuck off the ship with Bowman, well, things go really bad rather quickly.  Now it’s a question as to who is infected.

“The rubber glove is for your protection.”

One of the main issues raised by critics is that Leviathan borrows heavily from other sci-fi and horror films, and one cannot deny that the film liberally borrows from Ridley Scott’s Alien and John Carpenter’s The Thing and that this derivative and unoriginal plot was an attempt to capitalize on the success of those movies and despite being a horror film, Leviathan struggles to maintain a consistently tense and suspenseful atmosphere. Once the horror element kicks into gear, with the remaining crewmembers trying to figure a way to the surface, complicated by the fact that company exec Ms. Martin (Meg Foster) has written them off and has already notified the authorities that all onboard have perished, which leaves our heroes left trying to find a way to fend off the monster before the facility implodes and Martin’s premature declaration is made fact.

“I’m definitely going to file a complaint with OSHA.”

Stray Observations:

• Leviathan was sandwiched between DeepStar Six and The Abyss, this film and was only one of six underwater films released in 1989, which certainly didn’t help things. It’s kind of the over-looked middle child.
• It’s never explained how the scuttling of the Russian ship would have stopped a genetic infection that causes the victim to morph into a creature that can survive underwater.
• The doctor has several mentions of insubordination in his file as well as the juicy fact that he created a serum that killed a few people, so exactly why would you want that guy on the bottom of the seafloor in a high-pressure environment?
• Six Pack is a crew member that is not only an HR disaster but he is a character who if not killed by the monster would mostly likely have been fragged by one of his crew mates before their tour was over.
• Tri-Oceanic Corp hiring people with questionable backgrounds and attitudes makes sense when you realize that one of the company execs is Evil-Lyn from Masters of the Universe.

This is what you get when you take referrals from Snake Mountain.

On the production side of things, the designs by Ron Cobb for the undersea mining rig are quite good and the practical effects overall do an excellent job of immersing the audience in the bleak and otherworldly setting, evoking a constant feeling of dread as the crew members face one gruesome and terrifying encounter after another. Then when it comes to the monster itself we have legendary Stan Winston on hand to deliver the goods, unfortunately, as good as Winston is at creating monsters the creature designs for Leviathan are not entirely unique and while they are visually horrifying at times they are more or less uninteresting when compared to other iconic movie monsters, and the film could have benefited from a bit more screen time for the monster, as its sporadic appearances occasionally leave the audience wanting more.

Note: The glimpses of the creature are done with either quick cuts or obscured by smoke and shadow. One must assume that the filmmakers were not all that confident in the monster’s appearance either.

At its core, Leviathan is not just a creature feature, but also an exploration of human nature under extreme circumstances. As the crew faces the unknown and grapples with their own fears and demons, however, the film does suffer from some pacing issues, with certain segments feeling slower than desired and certainly not helped forcing us to follow along with a rather bland cast of cliches. The character development could have been more robust, as some of the supporting characters lacked depth, making it harder for audiences to form a strong emotional connection with them, and caring who loves and who dies is kind of important in a horror/sci-fi film. Where it really falters is in its occasional reliance on familiar horror tropes and predictable plot developments as most of the scares on display here can be anticipated by any seasoned horror enthusiasts, which may reduce the impact of certain key moments.

“Not scared yet? Well, talk to the hand.”

In conclusion, Leviathan remains a funny if silly gem of 1980s sci-fi horror cinema and while it does manage to successfully blend some elements of suspense, terror, and psychological drama to create an atmospheric and gripping experience it didn’t achieve the same level of recognition as some of its contemporaries. Fans of this genre will find Leviathan to be a worthwhile and enjoyable watch if not all that groundbreaking. Prepare to be submerged into a world of fear and wonder as you accompany this brave crew on their spine-chilling voyage into the depths of the abyss.

DeepStar Six (1989) – Review

In 1989 James Cameron released his underwater epic – the one not involving Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet and a big boat – but that year saw him challenged by four other ocean “thrillers|” with the first being DeepStar Six.  This undersea adventure pitted a group of misfits against a menace from the deep and also the stupidity of Miguel Ferrer, but the most surprising thing about this movie is that it wasn’t produced by Roger Corman.

The basic story of DeepStar Six deals with a group of scientists and naval officers who are in the last stages of assembling a giant underwater missile platform, this mix of civilians and military adds a nice bit of tension that almost makes the monster an incidental conflict compared some of the other shit going on in this film. We have project head John Van Gelder (Marius Weyers) who doesn’t want anything to interfere with his schedule of installing this new nuclear missile storage platform – he is the resident stick-up-his-butt character – he clashes with marine biologist Dr. Scarpelli (Nia Peeples) who wants to take a minute to explore a massive cavern system discovered under the site.  She wants to study the potentially primordial ecosystem inside but Van Gelder doesn’t have time for any namby-pamby science stuff so he orders two of his guys to use depth charges to collapse the cavern.

“We’re totally going to die, aren’t we?”

Fleshing out this cast of oddball characters is our ostensible hero and submarine pilot McBride (Greg Evigan) and his somewhat girlfriend Joyce Collins (Nancy Everhard), then there is the gruff but lovable station commander Captain Phillip Laidlaw (Taurean Blacque), secondary submarine pilot Jim Richardson (Matt McCoy), who is having an affair with Scarpelli.  Then there is the facilities chief medical officer Dr. Diane Norris (Cindy Pickett), geologist Dr. Burciaga (Elya Baskin) and the very soon to die tertiary sub-pilots Johnny Hodges (Thom Bray) and Osborne (Ronn Carroll), but most importantly, there is DeepStar Six’s mechanic Snyder (Miguel Ferrer) whose sole jobs seem to be in making the worst possible decision at any given moment.

“I’m actually more dangerous than the monster.”

Needless to say, when the charges are detonated, and part of the seabed collapses, it forms a massive fissure in the ocean floor which allows a prehistoric sea creature to be loosed upon the world. Its attraction to the lights of the submersibles causes it to attack – goodbye Hodges and Osborne – yet the real problems kick in when the crew prepare to abandon the base – the death of several of them a big deciding factor there – but the missile platform must first be secured and this leads to idiot Snyder explaining to the computer the reason for abandoning the missile platform is due to “aggression” but the computer assumes human aggression (i.e. an enemy military force) and not monster aggression. Snyder being dumb as a bag of rocks follows the computer’s recommendation to detonate the missile warheads, which then results in a nuclear explosion that creates a shock wave that damages DeepStar Six as well as the cooling system for the base’s nuclear reactor. We now have a ticking clock as our heroes must fix the decompression system, so they can safely reach the surface, all before the facility explodes or implodes in a watery fireball, not to mention there is that little problem of the monster popping into say hello once and awhile.

Could this be related to Audrey II from Little Shop of Horrors?

The plot is as leaky as a sunken ship, but that’s where the fun lies! It’s when the crew must put aside their differences and limited brain cells to outwit the creature, which seems to have more sense than they do, that film kicks into gear – it’s also very important that you never question how a fifteen-foot-long sea monster can navigate through small rooms and even smaller corridors – but as overtly silly as DeepStar Six gets one cannot fault the casting choices as they are good across the board. Sure, we are not talking about A-list actors here but they bring a certain authenticity to their roles and they maintain excellent group chemistry throughout the film’s runtime. It’s in the area of “plot mechanics” that the movie stumbles, from its basic premise to some of the dumbest decisions ever made.

Note: The movie takes place underwater but all of the miniatures are shot “dry for wet” utilizing smoke to create atmosphere, unfortunately, this hides some of the nice production work that this film had to offer.

Stray Observations:

• There is a lot of sexual hanky-panky going on aboard DeepStar Six and I’m betting that kind of fraternizing would be frowned upon considering this is being run by the Navy, but that issue is never even addressed.
• The movie never bothers to explain how an underwater giant rocket silo is any better than a ballistic missile submarine, with one being mobile while the other is stationary and harder to protect, thus DeepStar Six as a concept is pretty moronic.
• I seriously doubt the facilities mechanic would have the proper codes to detonate a nuclear payload but “you do you” movie.
• We get a lot of people talking about “decompression” in this movie but the filmmakers clearly didn’t understand how it works.  At one point Snyder explodes because he goes up to the surface in an escape pod without decompressing, but he’d be fine until he opened the hatch as the interior of the pod would maintain its pressure until breached.
• Making your audience wait 57 minutes to get their first glimpse of the monster, in a movie that clocks in at just over 99 minutes, is not a good idea.
• The monster popping out of the water to give us one final “jump scare” is very reminiscent of the ending of the original Friday the 13th which was also directed by Sean S. Cunningham.

Will this creature come back for a sequel and wear a hockey mask?

One of the film’s strongest points is in its use of impressive practical effects. The underwater sets and creature design while not all that groundbreaking for its time, hold up reasonably well and add to the film’s immersive feel. The tight and dimly lit corridors of the base enhance the sense of confinement and help create an atmosphere of impending doom. Furthermore, the underwater cinematography is commendable, making the most of its limited budget to portray a convincing deep-sea environment. As for the creature itself, while promising in theory, it falls rather short of expectations and the filmmaker’s attempts to keep the monster hidden for much of the film, relying on suspense to create a sense of terror, doesn’t quite work due to the fact that the creature has about five minutes of screen time, which may anger some movie monster fans.

Nobody paid six bucks to see these two declare their true love.

The film follows the familiar formula of a deadly creature lurking in the dark, picking off characters one by one, but director Sean S. Cunningham is saddled with a lower budget than is required to properly pull this off and the script’s lack of innovation makes the plot predictable and may leave seasoned horror fans feeling unchallenged. While the sets constructed for this film are quite good, and illustrate that the filmmakers really knew how to stretch a penny, the end result can’t help being compared to other underwater-themed films like the afmormentioned James Cameron film, The Abyss, and the other sci-fi horror flick Leviathan. And while DeepStar Six was the first of five underwater movies released in 1989 the best that can be said about this offering is that it’s not the worst of the lot.

“It could be worse, we could be Lords of the Deep.”

In conclusion, DeepStar Six is a passable entry in the 1980s underwater horror subgenre as it boasts some commendable practical effects, decent performances and a few genuinely suspenseful moments. However, it ultimately falls short due to its lack of originality, underdeveloped characters and a mostly absent monster. If you’re a fan of creature features or enjoy B-movie style entertainment then DeepStar Six might scratch that itch, but for a more compelling and innovative underwater thriller, there are better options to explore.

Superman IV: The Quest for Peace (1987)

The greatest danger to ever face Superman was not Lex Luthor nor the nigh unstoppable creature Doomsday, and what the Man of Steel faced in this film was more hazardous than a cargo container full of kryptonite. And what exactly is this ultimate peril I speak of?  That would be Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus of The Cannon Group, who Ilya Salkind had sold the Superman franchise to for a paltry $5 million dollars.

When one looks back at the original Superman: The Movie, arguably the greatest cinematic interpretation of the character to date, it’s hard to imagine that a decade later he’d end up in the hands of the men who brought the world such classics as The Apple and Ninja III: The Domination. Even Lex Luthor could not have come up with a crueller fate than this.  From the very beginning, you can tell this movie was a kryptonite-laden disaster waiting to happen, because despite Christopher Reeve returning as the Man of Steel, soaring gracefully through the skies, the film’s plot crashes and burns like an overcooked soufflé, with no survivors in the kitchen.  I’m not saying this is the worst superhero movie ever produced, there are too many contenders for that title to be earned, but everyone involved should be ashamed of themselves for driving the final stake into the franchise’s heart.

 

“If you need me, I’ll be hiding here in my Fortress of Solitude.”

Christopher Reeve was bribed back into the role of Superman with the offer of being able to “work on the script” but after the film was eventually released he later stated “Superman IV was a catastrophe from start to finish. That failure was a huge blow to my career.” Hearing that, my question for Mister Reeve is “Had you never seen a Cannon film before?” because they were never known for producing high-quality products, what did you think was going to happen? Worse is the fact that the terrible production value was the least of this film’s problems – which was due to much of the budget being siphoned off to other Canon projects – it was the a hot steaming pile of garbage of a script that even the best special effects team in the world couldn’t have saved.

 

Even an evil genius like Lex Luthor couldn’t make this thing look good.

The basic plot of Superman IV: The Quest for Peace has to do with the world being on the brink of nuclear war and some twelve-year-old kid writing Superman (Christopher Reeve) a letter asking him to rid the world of all nuclear missiles, and at first Superman says no – his dad has made a point of him not interfering with human history past or present – but after getting shamed by a Daily Planet headline he decides “Fuck it, let’s do this thing.” After a quick address to the United Nations, who are surprisingly enthusiastic about an alien being violating all of their sovereign states, he flies around the world collecting all of the nuclear missiles so that he can hurl them into the sun.

 

“I now declare myself Supreme Ruler of Earth.”

Now, the plotline involving Superman deciding to rid the world of nuclear weapons is certainly an interesting idea but if one were to give it half a second’s thought you’d quickly realize it’s also a very bad idea. If there were no longer nuclear weapons then all the world’s conventional weapons would be back in play, in a major way, without the threat of nuclear weapons owned by the big global powers a lot more smaller wars could break out. Superman would be spending the rest of his days stopping border incursions by various countries and other armed conflicts.  But that’s not what this movie is about, instead, we have Lex Luthor (Gene Hackman) escaping from prison, with the aid of his idiot nephew Lenny (Jon Cryer), and the brilliant plan of piggybacking some of Superman’s genetic material onto one of those nuclear missiles, where its genetic matrix would create an all-powerful Nuclear Man (Mark Pillow), whose voice sounds a lot like Gene Hackman’s.

 

I bet he also moonlights as a backup dancer for an ’80s glam rock band.

It’s not bad enough that we have a naive plot about Superman ridding the world of nuclear weapons but we also must suffer through one of the silliest-looking supervillains ever created – seriously, even members of the WWE would laugh at this guy – but that’s not all, we also have this subplot of The Daily Planet falling victim to a hostile takeover from media tycoon David Warfield (Sam Wannamaker) who has decided to turn The Daily Planet into a tabloid. But it gets worse, we also have his daughter Lacy Warfield (Mariel Hemmingway) getting the hots for Clark Kent and this leads to some television sitcom levels of shenanigans with Lacy and Lois Lane (Margot Kidder) having a double date with Superman and Clark Kent, because that is definitely something this movie desperately needed, dating hijinks.

 

“Lois, would you be interested in a rather kinky foursome?”

Stray Observations:

• We see a small crib that baby Clark apparently broke when he kicked it, but in Superman: The Movie we saw that he arrived on Earth as a toddler and thus would have been too big for that crib.
• Superman once again reveals his true identity to Lois Lane but once again wipes her memory of the event. What a colossal dick.
• How does Lex Luthor, the most well-known supervillain in the world, occupy a spacious suite atop what looks to be The Empire State Building? In the first movie, he had his lair underneath the city but in this film he doesn’t seem to care about hiding, which is definitely odd for an escaped convict.
• The fitness trainer at Lacey’s gym is a condescending prick to Clark, which is not a good business model and will get you fired, but that’s okay, Clark gets even by almost crushing the man’s chest with a set of barbells.
• When we first see Nuclear Man, Lex states that “The power of the sun has given him eternally generated heat” but then he immediately powers down the second he steps into shade. Not only does this immediately contradict Lex’s statement of “eternally” but it also makes Nuclear Man one of the lamest villains yet.
• Superman stops Mt. Vesuvius from erupting by plugging it with a severed mountain top, which is a pretty bad idea as it would cause pressure inside the volcano to keep building up until eventually it would explode, which would be a far more devastating and deadly disaster than a simple eruption.
• Superman is given a new power in this film, as he now has the ability to rebuild the Wall of China simply by staring at it with his “Super Build-O-Vision” and it looks about as dumb as it sounds.
• After defeating Nuclear Man, Superman captures Lex and Lenny and then drops Lenny off at “Boys Town” to be rehabilitated, but must ask  “Just how old is Lenny supposed to be?”

 

“But Superman, this guy is clearly in his twenties.”

But wait, there’s more! The special effects in this movie are so charmingly bad that even the crew of a cheesy ’70s sci-fi show would be embarrassed to use them. The flying scenes are particularly noteworthy – and not in a good way – as they featured a Superman poorly composited in such a way that he looks more like a cardboard cutout rather than the invincible Man of Steel. The film’s special effects are noticeably subpar, even by the standards of the late ’80s. Scenes involving Superman flying are marred by visible matte lines and awkwardly edited sequences, detracting from the sense of wonder and excitement that the character should evoke.

Note: I hope you like this shot of Superman flying at the camera because it is used ad nauseam in a blatant cost-cutting measure.

The film’s low budget is painfully evident throughout, resulting in cheesy and outdated visual effects that look like they were made using a child’s toy, seriously, even a high school AV club could have done a better job than this. The flying sequences are so poorly executed that they become unintentionally comical, with Superman looking more like a puppet on a string rather than the legendary hero we know and love. And what caused such shortcomings?| Turns out that Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus cut the budget from $36 Million to $17 million and then they cut out 45 minutes of footage after a disastrous test screening, so there was no chance of this thing turning out to be good.

 

“The reviews are in, it stinks!”

Even Lex Luthor’s grand plan to defeat Superman seems like a hastily scribbled note on the back of a napkin. It’s as if he thought, “Hey, let’s create an evil Superman and hope for the best!” It’s safe to say that the mastermind behind this plot needed a serious supervillain upgrade or at least a better henchperson. The script’s dialogue was equally cringe-worthy, filled with enough puns and one-liners to make a dad joke enthusiast cringe and the battles between Superman and Nuclear Man don’t even have the level of veracity you’d find in a Super Friends cartoon, in fact, calling these encounters cartoonish would be an insult to cartoons.  It makes me sad that Gene Hackman agreed to come back for this outing. I hope his salary at least paid for a new car or maybe a nice set of steak knives.

Final Question: Lex is an escaped convict and Superman’s archenemy so why is Superman so chatty with him in this film? Just grab the evil jerk and fly him off to prison, you can learn about his evil plan on the way to Alcatraz.

Despite all the flaws, and there are so many, Superman IV: The Quest for Peace is unintentionally hilarious – this film defines the phrase “So Bad it’s Good” – and in that respect you can have a lot of fun if you enter the viewing with the right frame of mind. It’s the kind of movie that you watch with friends on a lazy Sunday afternoon, armed with a tub of popcorn and an endless supply of witty commentary. You’ll find yourself pausing the film every few minutes just to catch your breath from laughing so hard at the ludicrousness on display. And to be sure, it’s sad to see a once-promising franchise fall as far as this fourth instalment did, a true embarrassment to the Superman legacy, and it’s no wonder that it effectively killed off the series for nearly two decades. If you’re looking for a superhero film with substance, excitement and quality storytelling, do yourself a favour and avoid this disaster at all costs, but if you’re up for some laughs then take this one out for a test flight. It’s still the safest way to travel.