Showing posts with label seaside horror. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seaside horror. Show all posts

Mar 29, 2020

DEEP RISING (1998)


Man…remember Deep Rising? If you’ve seen it, of course you do. And if you haven’t, I pity that you’ve lived the last 20 years of your life without it.

Not that director Stephen Sommers went on to a career of critical darlings, but he did godfather Universal’s pre-Dark Universe reboot of The Mummy, which saw him direct the initial film along with The Mummy Returns. Though The Mummy series went on to make billions of dollars and even inspire a theme park ride, none of them managed to contain the same level of charm and unpretentious big-screen thrills of Deep Rising. They contained the same sense of adventure as was present in Deep Rising, along with the same wise-cracking hero. But with Deep Rising being an R-rated affair, we also got a healthy dose of beautiful violence.


Deep Rising is an amalgamation of a great many inspirations: the films of Ray Harryhausen, disaster flicks like The Poseidon Adventure, a twist of Die Hard, and fun monster titles from the atomic age such as the original Godzilla and It Came from Beneath the Sea. Treat Williams’ Finnegan is clearly modeled on The Evil Dead’s Ashley J. Williams, from the drab, makeshift, army/navy surplus wardrobe, to the shotgun strapped to his back, to his sardonic and cynical take on life. Williams (Treat, not Ash) rarely enjoys the lead role, as he’s done mostly character work throughout his career, but he sinks every tooth he has into John Finnegan, imbuing him with life and creating an absolutely lovable hero in the mold of not just a chainsaw-wielding Ash but also Indiana Jones.

Deep Rising boasts a solid supporting cast of character actors, including Last of the Mohicans’ Wes Studi as the leader of the mercenaries along with Silence of the Lambs’ Anthony Heald, who, to my knowledge, has never not played a dick. I like to think he and William Atherton grab drinks every so often and have a literal dick-measuring contest as they debate all the dick characters they’ve played over the years. Beyond them, there’s also the early on-screen appearance of a gorgeous Famke Janssen (The X-Men), playing the con-artist/grifter/femme fatale (because every sea monster flick needs one).

Horror films are rarely fun anymore; now it’s all slight teen thrillers about how scary the internet is. And that’s boring. Deep Rising is fun. 



Mar 5, 2020

THE SHALLOWS (2016)


During 1999, there was one title in particular at the Sundance Film Festival that had people abuzz: The Blair Witch Project. The cheap and independently produced film made by a bunch of kids with very little experience managed to scare the hell out of attending critics and set off a bidding war by several major studios before mini-distributor Artisan Entertainment (now defunct and owned by Lionsgate Films) became the victor. The rest, as they say, is history. Not only did The Blair Witch Project change the way filmmakers approached the medium, it also added a new kind of film for which potential distributors should look — the cheaply produced thriller that, with clever marketing, had the power to be immensely profitable with little risk. Every year following, people were on the lookout for the next Blair Witch

In 2003, the same thing occurred at Sundance, only this film was Open Water, another cheaply and independently produced film made by inexperienced filmmakers with no-name actors. Based on a true story (unlike The Blair Witch Project, which only pretended to be), Open Water depicted a couple left behind in the middle of the ocean during a vacation scuba-diving trip, only to be slowly surrounded by sharks. While it didn’t capture the attention of the masses in the same way its witchy predecessor did, it still managed to make a splash with critics, who praised the film’s ingenuity and creativity in the face of budgetary restrictions. (Real sharks too, by the way — in the same water as the actors.)


And then along came The Reef several years later. The Australian production was a slicker product with a slightly higher budget, but also basically the same thing: shipwrecked people surrounded by sharks, each dying off one by one. It was an effective little number, even if the concept was a little less novel. (If we want to credit a sole inspiration for all of these sharks vs. people conflicts in modern cinema, maybe we can point to Quint’s stirring and still-famous U.S.S. Indianapolis monologue from JAWS.)

And this has led to The Shallows, which, again, explores the concept of one person being trapped in the middle of the ocean by a monstrous shark that WILL eat her, even IF there’s a giant whale just a few feet away that it could eat instead. (Sharks like whale meat so much that mass feedings have turned into orgies—just sayin'.) But instead of the independently produced version of this concept with a realistic and downbeat finale, The Shallows is very Hollywood, sticking the beautiful Blake Lively in a tight wetsuit, tighter bikini, and pitting her against an unrealistically behaving CGI shark. Along the way she becomes friends with a bird, talks to herself a lot, and manages to pull off the impossible, which I can’t expound upon without getting into spoiler territory.


As dumb as that all sounds (and it is dumb), The Shallows is easy entertainment and exactly the kind of film it set out to be. The film’s marketing was quick to liken it to this generation’s JAWS and that’s kind of accurate, except it’s essentially a feature length version of JAWS' final five minutes made for the instagram generation. When theaters were flooded with multi Saws and Hostels, the term “torture porn” was coined (but used incorrectly as often as “hipster” is today); spinning off from that, The Shallows is basically shark porn: camera close-ups of Blake Lively’s flawlessly toned and tanned body, intercut with ominous underwater shots or dark silhouettes housed in waves signifying the presence of a shark. “Did you see that?” audience members likely asked and pointed to the shadow in the wave. But no, the glimpse is gone; now it’s back to a close-up of Lively’s bikinied bottom, or side-breast, or tropical ocean water dripping off her blonde hair. It’s absurd and not exactly subtle; again, it’s easy entertainment, at which director Jaume Collett-Sera excels. Vaulted into the game following his better-than-expected horror film Orphan, this is the kind of playground where he’s best utilized. 

Amidst all the unnecessary and already dated speed-ramping, there are moments of genuine effectiveness, generally when Blake Lively’s Nancy is getting beaten up by the ocean. And this sounds like mockery, but it’s not; as she’s taken by the tide and rolled over sharp coral on the ocean floor, or during the first shark attack sequence, you imagine you’re feeling her pain. You cringe at the sight and your body tenses as if you’re about to feel shark teeth in your leg. Collett-Serra knows what he’s doing, even if he chooses to do it for concepts that are about 90% close to being real, actual films. And sequences like these are strikingly realized — especially the before mentioned initial shark attack.


Despite the modern age's well established dependence on CGI, the shark looks terrible. The dummy version is obviously a dummy, and the CGI version is more obviously CGI. They must know this, as the shark only features on screen for maybe less than a minute, with the usual fin and shadow shots doing much of the heavy lifting. Every appearance of the CGI shark is distracting. Because the audience (hopefully) knows the filmmakers didn’t use a real great white shark (they don’t take well to animal training, in case you never knew that), they immediately look to deduce “the trick”—to determine the “how did they do that?” of it all. Well, the answer is easy: computers. And from the looks of it, quickly, and on the cheap.

The Sci-Fi/Syfy Channel, especially their grating and brainless Sharknado films, have done enough damage to the killer shark sub-genre that The Shallows actually manages to leave a not-so-sour taste in your mouth as the credits roll. It’s popcorn entertainment at its truest definition, but sometimes a little popcorn is okay. Lively actually puts a lot of effort into what must have been a physically strenuous role, and the crew deserves accolades for filming almost exclusively on the ocean, which is extremely difficult just from a logistical standpoint. The Shallows won’t make you forget JAWS or Open Water, but it’s certainly better than Deep Blue Sea and Shark Night, and in the age of Sharknado and Mega-Shark versus Roger Corman, I’ll take it.


Dec 4, 2014

THE SEA SERPENT

Phosphorescent Monster Ate Bananas

“March 13. At 8 p.m., Thursday, 22° 06′ north, longitude 74° 21′ west. One half mile off starboard bow sighted strange marine monster. It approached and followed ship all night. Friday at 9 a.m. monster crossed our bows. Passengers in a panic. Reduced speed to five knots”

– Extract from the log of the
Admiral Farragut
Sitting in the doorway of his cabin, collarless and in his shirt sleeves, Captain Mader of the fruit steamer Admiral Farragut, which arrived this week from Port Antonio [Jamaica], told the story:
“We picked the sea serpent up — or rather the monster picked us up — late Thursday night,” said he. “I was on the bridge when one of the passengers, an elderly man, rushed up and excitedly called my attention to a phosphorescent light several miles astern. At first I thought it was a new submarine boat. As it came nearer we played the searchlight on it and could see that it was some strange sea monster.“It seemed about 120 feet long and threshed its way through the rough sea at a fearful speed. All night long it followed the vessel and during that time most of the passengers and crew remained on deck. The phosphorescent glow of the monster lighted up the sea within a radius of fifty feet.

“On Friday morning about breakfast time the serpent swam within thirty feet of the starboard side. The creature resembled a huge boa constrictor, with the exception that its body was green. From its sides streamed seaweed and other marine growth.

“The monster raised its head several feet above the water. It had huge eyes projecting from the top of its head and two green horns that projected upward nearly five feet. The horns resembled large antennae and moved about continuously.

“Three times the serpent crossed our bows and fearing to run it down, I signalled the engineer to reduce speed to five knots an hour.

“Some of the persons on board thought the monster was hungry and we threw over several sacks of peanuts and a few bunches of bananas. When we arrived off Cape Hatteras late Friday the monster circled around and swam south….”
 - Trenton Evening Times, Trenton New Jersey
18 March 1908

Source.

Apr 10, 2013

SS OURANG MEDAN

In February, 1948, distress calls were picked up by numerous ships near Indonesia, from the Dutch freighter SS Ourang Medan. The chilling message was, “All officers including captain are dead lying in chartroom and bridge. Possibly whole crew dead.” This message was followed by indecipherable Morse code then one final grisly message… “I die.” When the first rescue vessel arrived on the scene a few hours later, they tried to hail the Ourang Medan but there was no response. A boarding party was sent to the ship and what they found was a frightening sight that has made the Ourang Medan one of the strangest and scariest ghost ship stories of all time.

All the crew and officers of the Ourang Medan were dead, their eyes open, faces looking towards the sun, arms outstretched and a look of terror on their faces. Even the ship’s dog was dead, found snarling at some unseen enemy. When nearing the bodies in the boiler room, the rescue crew felt a chill, though the temperature was near 110°F. The decision was made to tow the ship back to port, but before they could get underway, smoke began rolling up from the hull. The rescue crew left the ship and barely had time to cut the tow lines before the Ourang Medan exploded and sank.

To this day, the exact fate of the Ourang Medan and her crew remains a mystery.


Image source.

Feb 28, 2013

UTTER TERROR

According to a set of Facebook photos, this eel-like creature was caught in the Raritan River, somewhere in northern New Jersey.

Perhaps most frightening, the rings teeth of displayed in the photo have a very clear purpose: Sea lampreys latch onto their prey, then secrete digestive fluids that slowly eat away and break down the host. The Great Lakes Fishery Commission reports a sea lamprey can be expected to kill upwards of 40 pounds of fish over the course of its life. Survival rates for particular species of host fish can be as low as 15 percent.

Unfortunately, we can't be completely certain this photo really does depict a sea lamprey. "The photo doesn't allow counting of gill openings (seven per side for sea lampreys), but based on size alone, this does appear to be a sea lamprey,” a New York Department of Environmental Conservation spokeswoman told Outside Magazine, according to the New York Daily News.

The species typically grows to 2.5 feet in length, but some sea lampreys have been documented at sizes of up to 3 feet long, reports the Gulf of Maine Research Institute.

Sea lampreys are a native to the Atlantic Ocean and are found along the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and the coast of Europe, as well as in the Great Lakes, where it is considered an invasive species.

The New York Daily News adds that appearances of sea lampreys in New Jersey have increased recently, as officials have begun to remove old dams, thus easing the creature's progress upriver.

Source.