Deepstar Six (1989)

 

DeepStar Six is an experimental deep-sea US Naval facility, with a crew of eleven people.  The team are in the final week of their tour of service, and bonuses are on the line if they don't complete their assigned tasks.  Head honcho John Van Gelder, therefore, has plenty of motivation to cut a few corners in order to get the work done on time.

Unfortunately for everyone aboard, one of those corners is his decision to use depth charges to collapse an underwater cavern, as its presence threatens their deployment schedule.  This releases an aggressive aquatic predator that soon makes its presence lethally known, threatening the lives of everyone on the mission.

Just like Leviathan, which I discussed last week, Deepstar Six is an "Alien, but underwater" movie that was not-so-coincidentally released in the same window as James Cameron's The Abyss.  As the the production with the lowest budget and the least well-known cast, it was deliberately targeted to be the first to cinemas, in the hope this would give it a commercial edge.  

It didn't really work out that way, for the record.  But the more important question for us, three decades later, is "is it entertaining?".

And the answer, within the very limited confines of "I want a schlocky low-budget creature feature that's Alien, but underwater", is that it's not bad.

It is helped by a solid cast.  They weren't well known at the time, but they're all solid performers.  Several have gone on to decent film and television careers, and should at least trigger a "I've seen this person before" level of recognition.

In contrast, the monster is something of a weakness.  In a 99 minute film - including start and end credits - the monster only turns up on screen in minute 64 (it does cause some damage before that, but it is not shown in those attacks) and is only actually in 4 scenes.  On the plus side, however, while the creature isn't on screen much and does looks a bit goofy when we do see it, it is at least more dynamic than the one in Leviathan.  It moves more rapidly and behaves with much more aggression.

Also in contrast to Leviathan, the script has a more positive expectation of the crew's employer: when things get dangerous, their request to evacuate is immediately approved.  Though of course it doesn't prove as easy to actually complete that evacuation as it is to approve it.  Venal, corrupt employers absolutely do exist, of course, but they're so common in media that it is nice to see one that acts reasonably decently.

Deepstar Six also has some nice little touches to its script.  For one thing, it does a solid job of selling the danger and isolation of working in the ocean depths.  As I was watching it, I found myself re-imagining the film without a monster - making it purely about facing the real life dangers of deep sea exploration.  For another, it has a clever visual juxtaposition between the introduction of two characters and a scene they share later in the decompression chamber.  I appreciated that little cute touch.

Deepstar Six is not a particularly ambitious or inventive film, but it does a decent job of being a budget-conscious monster film.  It's probably only one for fans of schlocky SF and horror, but for people in that group, it's probably worth a stream.