Movie Info
Movie Name: DeepStar Six
Studio: Carolco Pictures
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): January 13, 1989
MPAA Rating: R
Pretty unfortunate that the monster has a claw that just fits perfectly around my neck…
DeepStar Six is at the end of their run. Their assignment is to install nuclear missiles on the ocean floor, but the mission becomes jeopardized when they open an underground cavern. Something has been unleashed that has never been seen by man…and it is angry. The crew of DeepStar Six finds the base has been compromised and they must reach the surface before they are picked off one-by-one.
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham, DeepStar Six was part of a string of underwater films released in the late ’80s/early ’90s. The movie was critically panned and fared poorly at the box-office.
I can remember having a Starlog magazine hyping DeepStar Six and waiting for it to get to video to check it out…needless to say that it didn’t live up to the hype (along with its rival Leviathan), and it still is rather disappointing today.
Why can’t I ever be the heroic lead?
The movie just plays like an Alien rip-off…just substitute water for space. The characters are trapped in the spaceship (oops, I mean underwater base) and must escape the creature when the mission turns bad. One by one the characters meet a horrible (predictable) fate. The captain who has a great life and family and can’t wait to them dies (of course) and the couple that can’t commit but love each other manage to survive and have a future…it is trite and dull.
The movie hires rather generic character actors. The most notable actor probably is Miguel Ferrer who plays his normal screw-up guy. He keeps screwing up over and over again, detonating nuclear missiles and blowing up a coworker, and I do feel a bit sorry for him in this movie…he goes out like a champ though.
I think “some” monster got its claw caught in the cookie jar!
The visuals for the movie are rather cheap. Until the end, the creature is rather masked…when it is seen, it isn’t a great design. The monster attempts to look like a trilobite-dinosaur hybrid, but it is goofy and not threatening. The movie’s sets and designs just don’t look up to the level of The Abyss which was the best of the underwater movies.
DeepStar Six wasn’t a great movie, but it is rather short and painless. The movie will appeal to bad horror film lovers and does appear to be bigger than the straight-to-video movies that dominated the video stores at the time. Despite the ages of remakes and “reimaginings”, I don’t think we’re going to get DeepStar Six again…or maybe they’d just call it DeepStar Seven.
