Una Damon – Through the Shattered Lens

A group of mercenaries led by Hanover (Wes Studi) hires Captain John Finnegan (Treat Williams) and his crew to pilot their boat across the South China Sea so that they can loot a luxury cruise ship on its maiden voyage. The ship has been sabotaged by its owner, Simon Canton (Anthony Heald), who is hoping to collect a big insurance payment after Hanover and his men sink the boat. But before Finnegan, Hanover, and everyone else arrives, an undersea monster attacks the cruise ship and most of the crew and passeners end up dead. Finnegan, his crew, the mercenaries, Canton, and professional thief Trillian St. James (Famke Janssen) find themselves trapped on the ship and fighting to survive the chaos.

A B-movie that was made with an A-budget, Deep Rising never gets enough respect for being an enjoyable if mindless monster film. When it was released, it was dismissed as just being another Alien rip-off. While it does have some Alien DNA, the film really has more in common with the monster movies of the 50s and 60s. Treat Williams even looks like a leading man from that era, and his performance suggests that he was in on the joke. Famke Janssen is incredibly sexy as the incredibly named Trillian St. James. Anthony Heald and Wes Studi play two very different villains, and Studi gets a great final scene. There are also plenty of disposable characters who get picked off one by one. Some people will be disappointed that Finnegan’s comic relief sidekick (played by Kevin J. O’Connor) was not one of those characters, but these films always need an annoying sidekick. Someone has to make the audience laugh before the monster jumps out of nowhere.

Deep Rising is a entertainingly simple monster movie that doesn’t ask too much of its audience and delivers an entertaining 106 minutes of creature mayhem.

11 models have been murdered in Los Angeles and Margo (Kimberly Stevens) fears that she could be next. She’s been receiving threatening notes and feels as if someone is watching her and her boyfriend, Bill (Michael Phenicie). She hires a private detective (Mark Derwin) to protect her but it might be too late because Homer (Corey Feldman), the man who has been sending her the notes, has already enrolled in the same acting class of Margo. After Bill turns up dead, Homer is assigned to be Margo’s new scene partner. Is Homer moving in for the kill or is someone else responsible for the murders?

This mix of erotic thriller and horror was one of those movies that used to show up on a late night Cinemax in the 90s, where it could be watched by teenagers who kept one eye on the screen and one eye looking out for their parents. Corey Feldman starred in a lot of these films and in this one, he gives a twitchy and occasionally funny performance as the nerdy Homer. Homer is the most obvious stalker imaginable and it’s hard to believe that Margo, who is so concerned about being stalked that she’s hired a private detective, would not look at Homer and immediately realize that he was the culprit. Feldman overacts but he at least provides the film with the energy that is missing from the performances of Kimberly Stevens and Mark Derwin. Even better is the performance of Brion James as the autocratic and pretentious acting teacher. Watching him, I got the feeling that James probably could have based his performance on any number of Hollywood acting coaches.