As much as they formed a disproportionately frequent part of my movie consumption in my teens and 20s, I've long given up on B-Movies. While I think movies made away from the mass produced media machine do offer a rare opportunity to try something different, in this day and age the ease of access to cheap CGI not only means that special effects are bereft of any character or originality, but it also means the filmmakers don't even have to get creative.
With that said something about Gods of the Deep caught my eye. I've got a soft spot for Leviathon & Deepstar Six, and the cover was reminiscent of these. I knew it wouldn't be in their, already far from elite, league, but surely worth a watch.
Despite being a fully British cast and crew, the opening scenes feel distinctly like they were shot in Eastern Europe. Don't expect recognise any of the cast, I'm British and I don't.
We find ourselves in the World of the Pickman Corporation, who have uncovered what looks like a man made doorway at the bottom of the ocean between South America and Antarctica. They approach Jim (Derek Nelson) our vaguely Gary Barlow-lookimg twenty something protagonist who's got some sort of beef with Pickman involving his dad going missing while working on...something. This mission intrigues him though and he joins our ragtag group of cliched crew members to search new depths.
After setting sail from somewhere that looks nothing like South America, they take their experimental deep see sub and head off towards the dark unknown. Amongst the party is Jed Pickman (Chris Lines) himself. Somewhere between John Hammond, Carter Bourke, a drunken Uncle and the 'you're all going to die" guy from Friday the 13th movie, he is easily the highlight.
After no time and no suspense, they reach the hole and descend, only to find themselves confronted by what appears to be the corpse of a giant, hitherto unknown creature. As Jim sets out in a minisub to retrieve a DNA sample, it becomes clear that the being is anything but dead. In the ensuing panic the sub starts taking on water, people fall and bang their heads, a low budget Bryan Blessed/John Rhys Davies looking guy somehow gets locked in a room and drowns, and despite a potential lack of oxygen people decide to smoke.
As they make their ascent, the tissue sample Jim took starts to do strange things. Despite Pickman's insistence of studying it, amongst rambling like a lunatic, it is locked away. Needless to say there are double crosses, unexplained phenomena with equipment, the sample doesn't stay locked up, lots of bad decisions, even more slime and a 'shock' ending anyone who has ever seen a movie, ever can see coming from around the 20 minute mark.
So yes, this is a largely predictable, by the numbers affair, but actually isn't without some merit. The Lovecraftian nature of the creatures certainly gives it an edge to what could otherwise be a fairly standard Alien clone. In fact, if anything I was rather left wanting more of them. What did Pickman know? And was he a dribbling lunatic before he got into proximity of them or was that their influence?
Indeed there's actually the backbone of a decent story here, it just isn't fleshed out very well. There's also some laugh out loud silly moments, particularly when people fall. There's one where our strapping hero takes a fall of about a 3 foot drop and knocks himself out at a crucial moment,
It's also not helped by a cast that leave a lot to be desired. Nelson and female lead Makenna Guyler are passable enough, probably pretty good tv level actors. Chris Lines is hilarious, possibly intentionally on his part, if not the asinine script he's got to work with. The rest of the cast...eh not so good. There's lots of shouting, no subtlety and a lot of cringing on the part of the viewer.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by the amount of practical effects on show. No they weren't amazing, but they were more than workable for what we were dealing with. Even the CGI wasn't overdone, though the repeated use of the one scene of the Cthulhu-style monster grated by the end, but overall I can't chalk the effects up as a pleasant surprise.
All in, Gods of the Deep isn't a great movie. It's not even a good one, and I'd be generous in calling it 'alright' but what I will say is that it's far from the worst movie I've ever seen, and I suppose I was actually pleasantly surprised by it in a way. This doesn't mean I recommend it, but I don't totally hate it either.
With that said something about Gods of the Deep caught my eye. I've got a soft spot for Leviathon & Deepstar Six, and the cover was reminiscent of these. I knew it wouldn't be in their, already far from elite, league, but surely worth a watch.
Despite being a fully British cast and crew, the opening scenes feel distinctly like they were shot in Eastern Europe. Don't expect recognise any of the cast, I'm British and I don't.
We find ourselves in the World of the Pickman Corporation, who have uncovered what looks like a man made doorway at the bottom of the ocean between South America and Antarctica. They approach Jim (Derek Nelson) our vaguely Gary Barlow-lookimg twenty something protagonist who's got some sort of beef with Pickman involving his dad going missing while working on...something. This mission intrigues him though and he joins our ragtag group of cliched crew members to search new depths.
After setting sail from somewhere that looks nothing like South America, they take their experimental deep see sub and head off towards the dark unknown. Amongst the party is Jed Pickman (Chris Lines) himself. Somewhere between John Hammond, Carter Bourke, a drunken Uncle and the 'you're all going to die" guy from Friday the 13th movie, he is easily the highlight.
After no time and no suspense, they reach the hole and descend, only to find themselves confronted by what appears to be the corpse of a giant, hitherto unknown creature. As Jim sets out in a minisub to retrieve a DNA sample, it becomes clear that the being is anything but dead. In the ensuing panic the sub starts taking on water, people fall and bang their heads, a low budget Bryan Blessed/John Rhys Davies looking guy somehow gets locked in a room and drowns, and despite a potential lack of oxygen people decide to smoke.
As they make their ascent, the tissue sample Jim took starts to do strange things. Despite Pickman's insistence of studying it, amongst rambling like a lunatic, it is locked away. Needless to say there are double crosses, unexplained phenomena with equipment, the sample doesn't stay locked up, lots of bad decisions, even more slime and a 'shock' ending anyone who has ever seen a movie, ever can see coming from around the 20 minute mark.
So yes, this is a largely predictable, by the numbers affair, but actually isn't without some merit. The Lovecraftian nature of the creatures certainly gives it an edge to what could otherwise be a fairly standard Alien clone. In fact, if anything I was rather left wanting more of them. What did Pickman know? And was he a dribbling lunatic before he got into proximity of them or was that their influence?
Indeed there's actually the backbone of a decent story here, it just isn't fleshed out very well. There's also some laugh out loud silly moments, particularly when people fall. There's one where our strapping hero takes a fall of about a 3 foot drop and knocks himself out at a crucial moment,
It's also not helped by a cast that leave a lot to be desired. Nelson and female lead Makenna Guyler are passable enough, probably pretty good tv level actors. Chris Lines is hilarious, possibly intentionally on his part, if not the asinine script he's got to work with. The rest of the cast...eh not so good. There's lots of shouting, no subtlety and a lot of cringing on the part of the viewer.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by the amount of practical effects on show. No they weren't amazing, but they were more than workable for what we were dealing with. Even the CGI wasn't overdone, though the repeated use of the one scene of the Cthulhu-style monster grated by the end, but overall I can't chalk the effects up as a pleasant surprise.
All in, Gods of the Deep isn't a great movie. It's not even a good one, and I'd be generous in calling it 'alright' but what I will say is that it's far from the worst movie I've ever seen, and I suppose I was actually pleasantly surprised by it in a way. This doesn't mean I recommend it, but I don't totally hate it either.