DeepStar Six (1989)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: To capitalize on the recent success of Aliens, this movie remakes it but underwater instead of in space but fail abyss-mally due to budget and talent constraints.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

• Nia Peeples is in this picture and it’s set by the ocean, hopefully Rick Kane surfs by and whisks her away!

• Who else always gets composers Harry Manfredini and Henry Mancini mixed up? Is it because they’re both Japanese?

• Kind of like Armageddon and Deep Impact, or Jurassic Park and Carnosaur, I vaguely remember this movie kinda sorta competing and being mentioned in the same breath as The Abyss, or maybe it was Leviathan, or both. There’s obviously a clear winner in that group, just like Carnosaur.

• The underwater submarine scenes look like someone threw a paper airplane through a crackhead park at night.

• This one actor looks like Stephen King in the final stages of mercury poisoning.

• I love this one guy who always played a nice Russian man in the ‘90s.

• I’m a little lost since I didn’t see the previous five DeepStar movies.

• So there’s a head Brit scientist who demands to call the station they just left, even though he could have just stayed there if the work was so go damn important.

• This is pretty boring so far but I don’t think Nia Peeples is wearing a bra, so it’s not too bad.

• So basically, there’s a bunch of missiles at their test site and they found a cave underneath it. It won’t go great for them.

• So far this is less a horror movie and more a bunch of people talking in a storage closet.

• I use a rowing machine at the gym all the time and I’ve never seen anyone do it underhanded the way Nia Peeples is doing it. But I still don’t think she’s wearing a bra, so that’s ok.

• And then she has a PG-rated shower scene. At least it’s keeping me somewhat awake.

• These numbnuts just opened a lava portal straight to hell!

• Remember the 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea ride at Disney World? These underwater cave scenes kind of look like that if they had a $30 budget and the ride was located in the swamps Disney World is built on.

• Whatever this seas creature is, it’s kind of odd that it’s attacking stationary objects like this research vessel. At least Jaws knew he wanted to get to the Orca to eat Quint and make love to Hooper.

• This movie stars Nancy Everhard, is that Eric Everhard’s sister?

• These two submarine guys are staring at a radar amazed at the size of the creature heading for them but it’s just a circular blip on the screen, which doesn’t indicate size whatsoever.

• This is already half over (3/6) and nothing has happened except the creature invisibly knocking into this vessel and breaking the Russian guy’s legs somehow.

• I should’ve watched Leviathan.

• McBride (the main protagonist who looks like he just came from another soap opera audition rejection) just asked Laidlaw (the captain of the DeepStar number 6) to throw him a rope when Laidlaw was 2 inches from him.

• The connecting hatch comes down on Laidlaw and crushes his back, then he floods the compartment somehow to I guess commit suicide? There are easier ways to go about it.

• This would’ve been a great entry if this year’s theme was SchlocktoBOREfest.

• By the way, the actor who played Capt. Laidlaw was Taurean Blacque, and I assume his brother is Big Dick Blacque from the movie Hardcore.

• Nia Peeple’s theory is that the creature doesn’t like light, kind of like when I wake up in the morning after too much WHTE WINE!!

• McBride finds out his lady is pregnant, and she says she wasn’t going to tell him about it because he’s such a cool lone wolf. My wife tried to pull the same stunt with me, and it totally worked.

• I have actually been bored to death. I have died. Tell my family. I am now a ghost, still typing because this is hell and I’m paying penance.

• You know what movie has been severely underrated over the years? U-571. Fantastic underwater war picture.

• For some reason the DeepStar Six is kind of imploding, I’m not sure why, I wasn’t really paying attention. Both the underwater sea base and the movie, I mean.

• It’s movies like this that make me wonder if Schlocktoberfest is worth the effort. It’s not, but I’ll have forgotten that this time next year, just like this time last year. Even though it’s been 6 years since anybody has read this garbage.

• This deep dive suit looks a lot like the robot from Lost in Space. I mean the 1997 movie, not any of the TV shows, especially the new one that has a season every 19 years.

• All right, so this was more of a thriller than horror I guess, but so is Jaws.

• I wonder if a halfway decent cast would have helped this. Like Kurt Russell as McBride, and so on? But Nia Peeples can stay, of course.

• The creature follows the suit guy into the ship, and bites him in half. Finally, gore instead of bore.

• I know that filming movies in water tanks and whatnot is extraordinarily difficult and hellish for the cast, and there’s no way this was worth the trouble.

• I think Nia Peeples just got eaten, maybe? Great.

• We’ve still barely seen any of the creature. I just know it has teeth, like an old beaver.

• For some reason I just got an intense craving for garlic bread. I don’t know, just thought I’d talk about something.

• Oh hey, it’s the one scene I remember for some reason, when Joyce punctures Miguel Ferrer’s stool with a harpoon and it inflates. It definitely is the most entertaining part of this movie, which really tells you something.

• Why would this undersea scientific research base even have shotguns?

• Miguel harpoons Van Gelder (the main sicentist dude, doesn’t matter) in the back on accident and his chest explodes. That was ok.

• Miguel has lost it. Why do we need this? Why can’t they just fight the god damn creature?

• He’s trying to escape to the surface without decompressing, this should be good.

• Hahahaha that was fantastic, but should’ve went on 5 minutes longer.

• The creature is kind of like a shitty rubber crab. The lady doctor electrocutes it but it does no good.

• It’s really hard to even make fun of this movie, it’s so flat and lifeless 95% of the time.

• So they escape in an escape pod, and the base explodes. Where have I seen this before? I wonder if the Alien, I mean sea creature, has stowed away with them?

• They surface against the worst painted backdrop I’ve ever seen. It couldn’t be more obvious they were in a studio water tank if a tour group walked by in the foreground. I guess Leviathan booked up all the good water tanks.

• Oh look, the creature followed them to the surface. Then McBride blows himself up. Thank god. But he’ll turn up behind her in the water.

• Yep, that’s exactly what happens. Now to just die of exposure on this life raft and we’re all set.

• There’s a final aerial shot of the life raft that was taken in the actual ocean and it’s a STARK contrast from the water tank before.

Final Thoughts: This is about as dull as a paper bag of cloudy saltwater. Apart from that one guy getting bitten in half, Miguel Ferrer’s veins exploding, and Nia Peeples on the rowing machine, you may as well watch the original Aliens again then just turn on the ocean waves setting on your sound machine and take a nice nap. 

Score: 3 Stars of the Deep (out of 10)