Review of Deep Rising (1998) by Angel . — 13 Dec 2006

For the past month the Sci Fi Channel has been blasting viewers with ads for their horror film festival: 8 MOVIES TOO SCARY TO SHOW IN THEATERS!!! threatens the voiceover, which I guess is a better way of saying direct to video. You know the kind: heavy on the gore and bloodshed, light on just about everything else, with an impinging sense that they take themselves way too seriously. Which often has the unintended effect of making them somewhat laughable, especially when they're bad.

On the other hand, there are those horror flicks that are meant to make you smile, that know how to have fun with the genre and are able to engage their audiences with a wink. These movies are bad, but they're intended to be that way, and that's why they work.

SHAUN OF THE DEAD.

Slackers of the world rejoice! Even you have the chance to save your friends from utter doom, after all else has failed. It helps to have zombies that haven't been upgraded to 28 Days Later speed, a couple of blunt instruments capable of inflicting great bodily harm, and plenty of pent-up passive aggressive anger to channel into constructive action. Play your cards right and you may even get to make up with your estranged girlfriend as a bonus, while keeping, well, most of your loved ones safe.

SLITHER.

With a name like Slither, you know it's gonna be either bad, or bad on purpose. Luckily for B-movie fans it's the latter. The story starts out conventionally enough, with an alien space pod crash landing on the outskirts of a sleepy town. The pod unleashes a squidlike entity that quickly takes over one of the town's denizens, forcing him to do its will, which involves taking over the planet's lifeforms by infecting them with its slimy brood.

From there it goes into refreshingly light-hearted territory, whereby the initial carrier tries in vain to hide his rapidly mutating form from his concerned wife ("It's just a bee sting, honey.") Nathan Fillion shows up as the town sheriff, basically reviving his Captain Mal role from Firefly, complete with twangy accent and pricelessly understated commentary ("Well now that is some fucked up shit," he intones, as the alien wrecks gruesome havoc on its helpless victims.) There's a seriously wacked out birthing scene where the alien larvae are initially spread that brings to mind the blueberry girl from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with a lot more pus involved. Once those slithery worms are on the loose all hell breaks out, but it's the kind of hell where even in the most direst of circumstances, there's still room for a well-timed joke.

DEEP RISING.

Adam and I came across this one while flipping through the channels late one night. The plot has something to do with a slowly sinking cruise ship, a band of armed mercenaries intending to loot said ship, and a mysterious alien creature with an appetite for human flesh who's made the ship its hunting ground. (I imagine the pitch session for this going like, "It's Die Hard meets Predator meets Aliens meets Titanic!!!") Treat Williams plays the hero of the story, a sea captain who's being forced to aid the mercenaries in their scheme. He's rugged enough to pass for a leading man and wry enough to get away with lines like "Now what?!" after some impending doom is about to descend.

The mercenaries, who out-Rambo Rambo in terms of firepower, ultimately are no match for the squidlike monster, which is actually quite impressive when it finally makes its CGI appearance. Before that moment, there's plenty of creepiness as it makes its way unseen in the watery depths (the filmmakers wisely keep the monster hidden for the most part, relying instead on atmosphere and a sense of dread). Yeah, the plot is predictable and the characters cheesy, but there's enough random moments of irreverency, in between some truly chilling sequences, that keep you engrossed, alternately smiling and shuddering, until the end.