DeepStar Six (1989)

Directed by Sean S. Cunningham. Starring Greg Evigan, Nancy Everhard, Miguel Ferrer, Marius Weyers, Cindy Pickett, Matt McCoy, Nia Peeples, Taurean Blacque, Elya Baskin, Thom Bray, Ronn Carroll. [R]

While installing a nuclear missile platform, a crew of deep-sea workers are terrorized by a primordial entity which emerges from caverns collapsed by detonation. First of several underwater science fiction sagas released at the end of the decade (the only good one being James Cameron’s The Abyss), it’s just another Alien-clone monster movie, done in by unconvincing underwater photography and effects, and an all-too-unoriginal monster, elaborate yet derivative and illogical. These kinds of movies invariably feature a character who goes crazy and starts turning on the others, and this one has a real doozy in Miguel Ferrer, first being responsible for the mind-bogglingly stupid decision that initially traps everyone in their dire predicament, later “accidentally” killing one of his cohorts, and finally dooming himself to a ghastly fate in a fit of madness. As in director Cunningham’s original Friday the 13th, the only decent shock comes at the very end when something leaps out of the water for a surprise attack…but as it was for fellow ‘89 deep-sea thriller, Leviathan, this “second climax” is so abrupt and rushed, who cares? Mario Kassar co-produced.

38/100