I Watch Films: Underwater

 Underwater

A drilling rig at the bottom of the Marianas Trench has an accident. A group of workers have to make their way through the various damaged sections, and also outside in their pressure suits. Things get stranger as they search for escape pods to take them to the surface. Weird creatures are swarming about the place.

There is a famous cause behind it, which I spoil in the footnote*, and when this is revealed the story comes to a swift ending. It’s tense and quick and does not outstay its welcome.

Watch This: For a tense, fairly well-paced underwater disaster film
Don’t Watch This: If scenes of pressure-armour slowly bumbling along the seabed while tension builds is not for you

 

* It’s Cthulhu, or a close rip-off, and he has been giving birth to a bunch of mini-chthulhus, and also tearing up the drill that (presumably) has been disturbing his sleep. This is a poor use of Cthulhu, who is basically Godzilla here, but then I would argue that everyone uses Cthulhu poorly, not least Lovecraft in The Call Of Cthulhu. Why does our protagonist in that story find it so hard to learn what’s going on and what does he fear will kill him? Is it the dragon/octopus/man? No, he was defeated by being run over by SS Alert, a medium-sized steam yacht. The danger is the degenerate worldwide cult of various mongrel races** who worship Cthulhu. It’s they who will kill anyone who learns of him, and only when they win will he rise.

At which point he will hardly need to as mankind will be defeated already. Anyway, the lad himself is a big mook who doesn’t do anything. Which is fine, but not what we think of when we say Cthulhu.

** Lovecraft’s description