Deep Star Average
An underwater missile silo is being built near underwater caves. The caves are the home of an enormous creature who does not want humans in the neighborhood. The creature, defending its turf, attacks the underwater vessels one by one. A missile explosion disables the underwater facility and makes the monster angrier. Now the crew of the underwater base has to battle the monster and try to find a way to escape before the facility goes critical and explodes.
A bit of nostalgia for some. For others, they remembered it differently and were disappointed. Having never seen it before I could look at it with fresh eyes.
The acting is good. The cast isn’t big but there are some decent actors in the bunch. Greg Evigan and Miguel Ferrer for example. The standard prerequisite characters are represented as in most confined quarters horror movies. You know, hero, love interest, angry screw-up, comic relief, no-nonsense director, etc. etc.
Monster effects are elusive. It’s quite awhile before you actually see anything of the monster which is typical for a lot of horror movies. Once you did see it you weren’t really sure what it looked like. Perhaps a crab-like thing. Your guess is as good as mine.
I looked at it as more of a suspense thriller with psychological undertones rather than a horror movie. The monster itself was incidental to the basic tone of the movie. There is blood and some gore. It’s not a bad movie and not a great movie. That’s by today’s standards. At the time the movie was made in 1989 movies were limited as to what they could do. Especially lower budget ones. Because of that I felt I needed to cut the movie some slack.
As for the comparison to “The Abyss”, Deep Star was released in January 1989. Abyss was released in August of the same year. I don’t know if that means anything in particular or not. The budget for Deep Star was around $8,000,000. On the other hand the budget for Abyss was around $70,000,000 and was written and directed by James Cameron. The question being, does a bigger budget make a better movie? Maybe. I think it’s all in the individual’s perception. The stories between the two are not all that different. Underwater team with various character types get into trouble with a monster of some sort. Most characters die in one way or another.
If you loved it good for you. If you were disappointed you may have been jaded by the advance of time and CGI. I was OK with the movie but nothing special jumped out at me to make it memorable. To me it’s an average movie. I will admit I was looking for more monster movie and less suspense thriller.