Walking out of the critic’s screening for “Underwater,” the new deep-sea creature feature that owes a strong debt to Ridley Scott and James Cameron, it was clear I was in the minority.
One critic called the film a dumpster fire. Another lamented that it was little more than a glorified B-movie. Even the folks who host the screenings didn’t hold back. One woman complained that there were no answers given, no backstory delivered, to explain what was happening six-and-a-half miles deep at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.
Me? I was praising the shit out of “Underwater,” even as people looked at me like I’d lost my mind.
And you know why I don’t care? Because for every criticism that can be levied at William Eubank’s film, there’s something equally positive to be championed.
Yes, this is basically “Alien” at the bottom of the ocean, but why argue when it introduces a remarkable new monster that’s both scary and magnificent. Seriously, it’s like screenwriters Brian Duffield (Netflix’s fantastic “The Babysitter”) and Adam Cozad (“The Legend of Tarzan”) boned up on their H.P. Lovecraft and envisioned a true Elder God being released from the depths due to reckless drilling, and what they conceived is far more impressive than any garden-variety Kaiju found in “Pacific Rim” or “Godzilla.”
And, while we’re talking about “Alien,” yes, it’s fair to compare Kristen Stewart’s Norah to a certain badass, a strong female crew member named Ripley, but Stewart doesn’t try to copy or blatantly rip-off Sigourney Weaver’s iconic role. Stewart’s tech-savvy engineer is her own woman, vulnerable yet fiercely determined to help her colleagues survive.
And when the time comes that Norah helplessly watches a terrifying new life form try to swallow her whole from the head down, you’re not going to spend one second debating WWERD (what would Ellen Ripley do). Not if you’re a fan of monster movies. You’re going to be silently screaming in your head, “Grab the flare gun!” and gripping your date’s hand tight.
As for the complaints about a lack of backstory or substantive plot, know this going in “Underwater” is as much a popcorn disaster flick as it is a creature feature. In fact, the monsters don’t show up for a good 30 minutes, which provides Eubank ample time to sufficiently drench viewers in claustrophobic dread.
“Underwater” takes off fast after establishing the enormity of the drilling operation miles below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. As quadrants of the facility flood and implode, Norah and a tiny band of five other survivors, including her captain (Vincent Cassel), research assistant Emily (Jessica Henwick, Marvel’s “Iron Fist”) and three male workers (T.J. Miller, John Gallagher Jr. and Mamoudou Athie), scramble to reach a secondary drilling station two miles from the destroyed main terminal.
There’s little opportunity for a ton of backstory because you’re watching their plight unfold in real time, which helps to kick up the adrenaline and drive the narrative like a runaway train. By the time the first creature makes itself known, you’re already panting from watching them scurry and crawl and climb over debris, knowing the weight of the entire sea could crush their surroundings like a cheap can at any second.
Most viewers probably won’t recognize Eubank’s name, and that’s understandable. His ambitious 2014 sci-fi, time travel thriller, “The Signal,” showed promise but ultimately failed to coalesce into a crowd-pleasing cult classic.
But here’s the thing, this is just his third feature film. He’s a young director, and he’s improving, and that’s something we as film fans should champion. We want people like him making movies like this because one day, when he really nails it, the result is going to be awesome.
At the risk of sounding like an aging “Get Off My Lawn” curmudgeon, I can still recall periods in the past 30 years where movies like “Underwater,” ahem, flooded the multiplex, and we loved them, not because they were so original or so unbelievably creative, but because they were fun.
And I’m here to tell you that “Underwater” is just as good, and I would argue better, than “Deep Star Six,” “Leviathan,” “Deep Rising” or “Virus.”
Yes, this is a B-movie. Yes, there are gaping chasms in the plot that defy logic. And, yes, it wears the influence of better films plainly for all to see.
But for 90 minutes, I allowed myself to imagine what it might be like to be trapped miles deep in the equivalent of a cold, pitch-black hostile environment with a humongous something that wanted to devour my face, and I was thoroughly entertained.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
This article appears in Jan 9-16, 2020.