A group of miners are sent into a dangerous environment by an evil corporation. When they explore an abandoned ship, they unknowingly bring a hostile creature onto their own vessel. One of the crewman is killed when the creature mutates inside of his body. The rest of the crew includes a scientist, one strong woman, one woman who cries, and a strong, silent captain.
Sound familiar?
No, it’s not Alien.
Instead, it’s Leviathan, which could best be described as being Alien underwater with a dash of The Thing tossed in. The main difference between Leviathan and the films that inspired it is that people are still watching Alien and The Thing while Leviathan is one of the most forgettable films that I have ever seen. Peter Weller is the captain. Richard Crenna is the scientist. Amanda Pays has the Ripley role and Ernie Hudson fills in for Yaphet Kotto. Daniel Stern plays Sixpack, who turns into a monster after he drinks contaminated Russian vodka. (It happens to the best of us.) Meg Foster, with her translucent eyes, represents the corporation.
That’s a good cast and the script was written by David Peoples (who also wrote Blade Runner, Unforgiven, and 12 Monkeys) and Jeb Stuart (who wrote Die Hard and The Fugitive). The above average special effects were designed by Stan Winston. Why, with all of these talented people involved in the production, is Leviathan so by the numbers and forgettable? It probably had something to do with the presence of George Pan Cosmatos in the directing chair. Cosmatos is also credited with directing Rambo: First Blood II, Cobra, and Tombstone. The first two films starred Sylvester Stallone, who was known for directing all of his 80s films in every way but name only and everyone knows that Kurt Russell was in charge on Tombstone.
If you want to see Alien underwater done right, watch Deepstar Six.
Sybil Danning is top-billed in The Tomb but she only appears at the very start of the film. She lands an airplane on a landing strip in the middle of the Egyptian desert and then gets into a gunfight with two archeologists who have robbed a tomb and are now trying to sell off the artifacts. When one of the archeologists aims his handgun at the plane and pulls the trigger, the plane explodes. Though Sybil survives the gun fight, that’s it for her in this movie. Since whatever modern-day audience The Tomb may have is largely going to be made up of nostalgic Sybil Danning fanboys, most people will probably stop watching once it becomes obvious that she is never coming back.
Kim Basinger is Maggie, a nurse who has adopted her autistic niece, Cody. Her sister, Jenna (Angela Bettis), used to be a junkie but now she has cleaned up her act and married a former-child star-turned-cult leader, Eric Stark (Rufus Sewell). Because Jenna’s daughter has supernatural powers and Eric is a Satanist, they want the little girl back. Christina Ricci is Cheri, a junkie goth who used to be a member of the cult and who tries to warn Maggie before getting her head chopped off. Jimmy Smits is John Travis, the FBI agent who helps Maggie out when Jenna and Eric kidnap Cody. Mostly, though, he’s just Jimmy Smits, a TV actor who looks out of place whenever he appears in a movie.
Michael Bower (Edward Furlong) is a 15 year-old loser who walks with a limp and still has nightmares about the night his mother was killed in a car wreck. Brainscan is the new PC game that Michael makes the mistake of playing. In the game, Michael is encouraged by The Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) to kill both his friends and complete strangers. When Michael starts finding body parts around his house, he realizes that whenever he kills someone in the game, he kills them in real life too.
To quote a wise man named Forrest Gump, shit happens … especially if there is a clown nearby.
When med student Rick Westford (James Spader) is found hung at the free clinic where he worked, the police say that he committed suicide. Rick’s estranged twin brother, John (James Spader), does not agree and launches an investigation of his own. With the help of Rick’s co-worker, Chris (Cynthia Gibb), John discovers that Rick may have learned the identity of a serial killer who has been copying the crimes of Jack the Ripper and murdering prostitutes in Los Angeles. However, the killer knows that John is getting close to discovering his identity so the killer sets out to frame John not only for the prostitute murders but for the murder of his brother as well.
When writer Ted Fletcher (Edward Albert) moves his family into a house in Kyoto, Japan, he does not know that the house comes with a violent history. 140 years ago, the house was occupied by a samurai and his wife. When the samurai discovered that his wife had taken a lover, he killed both them and himself. The three spirits remain in the house, haunting Ted and his wife, Laura (Susan George). When a possessed Laura starts an affair with Ted’s best friend (Doug McClure), will history repeat itself?
Through the Shattered Lens 