a5c7b9f00b A group of U.S. Navy engineers, led by Capt. Laidlaw (Taurean Blacque), are building an underwater base when they inadvertently disturb the lair of a gigantic creature. The monster attacks, and the crew, including lovers Collins (Nancy Everhard) and McBride (Greg Evigan), tries to evacuate, but the facility is badly damaged. After the exterior is breached, the increasingly desperate people become separated from one another, and the creature begins to pick them off one by one. At the bottom of the ocean, the DeepStar Six has just discovered a new and deadly alien menace. Project leader Van Gelder is driving most of the crew nuts. He&#39;s behind schedule on constructing an underwater missile platform for the US Navy. Unfortunately, pro forma sound checks reveal a cave beneath the seabed over which the platform was to be built. Van Gelder orders that explosives be used to collapse the cave so that building can continue. Burciaga and Collins register their objections due to structural risks. Scarpelli objects since she will lose any chance of studying possible life forms that normally reside in the caves. Captain Laidlaw sides with Van Gelder since the Navy is likely to shut down the project if there are any more delays.<br/><br/>Hodges and Osborne set off the chargesordered. When they send down a tethered remote unit to record stills and video, they manage to lose it. They detach from their tractor housing to pursue the remote, since losing it would be so expensive. The cavern is rather huge, and the likelihood of filling it in to continue construction looks bleak.<br/><br/>That&#39;s when the elimination derby starts. The rest of the film is about survival: the crew versus whatever took out that the remote.<br/><br/>This was a rather ordinary entry. It&#39;s sci-fi set underwater with some nasty creatures. This one turns into a more or less by-the-numbers elimination derby, with none of the characters (except perhaps Snyder) showing any awareness of what was happening. It was just not that interesting. What got me excited about this movie was the crew, Sean Cunningham, Jim Isaacs and Henry Manfredini have all been involved with the Friday the 13th series of movies. Given that they&#39;re top of my list of &#39;chilled night in&#39; movies and keep me warm at night so to speak, the idea of a non-Jason movie with these fellas working on it pricked up my ears.<br/><br/>The movie is actually quite similar in feel to their other significant works, in that it&#39;s tense, well scored and at times quite bloody. You&#39;ll certainly be sucked into the movies atmosphere. What also helps is that unlike many other films of this genre, the script and acting are tight, so much so that you really don&#39;t want the characters to die, a change from the normal &#39;you&#39;re so dumb, I hope you get a pitchfork in the neck&#39; line of thinking most suspense horrors take.<br/><br/>The creature (I won&#39;t describe it heavily,it&#39;s a big part of the movie and knowing what it looks like etc might spoil it a bit) is quite a piece of work, doing the unthinkable and managing to sneak up on people underwater despite being one of the largest beasts I&#39;ve seen in a movie for quite some time. Several times I jumped out of genuine shock at its attacks.<br/><br/>So,you can tell, I really liked this film, so why the 7 out of 10, shouldn&#39;t it be a 9 or 10? Well, it has its shortcomings. The Sci-Fi aspect of the movie is quite underdeveloped, which is a shame,the production design is excellent, and I wish a little more had been done with it than just creating an underwater haunted house. Also, the movie has not aged well at all. Certain sections (largely due to the budget, so I don&#39;t really blame them) look like they&#39;ve been lifted straight out of Stingray. I can&#39;t help but feel that most of the budget was sunk into the creature (I tell you now though, it has paid off in spades). All of this unfortunately makes the movie a little patchy to watch, hence the 7.
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