Midnight Buffet

     Deep Rising is an action/horror movie written and directed by Stephen Sommers.  It was released in 1998 and was mostly considered a disaster, even earning a place on Roger Ebert’s Most Hated Films list.  Since then it has earned a bit of a cult following and has many die-hard fans, yours truly being one of them.  It’s a movie that’s easier to slip into than a hot tub, mostly due to its use of stock characters that any cinephile will be familiar with.

The film begins with Captain Finnegan and his small crew who have been hired to ferry a group of mercenaries to a luxury cruise ship.  Finnegan is the sarcastic rogue with a heart of gold and his crew consists of the comic relief engineer (who can fix anything) and a sassy badass Asian chick.  The mercenaries are the bullies who let their guns do the talking.  They plan on boarding the ship, robbing it and sinking it.  Guess what?  The owner of the ship is the one who has hired them to do this because the ship costs too much to operate and he’ll make a boatload of money (pun intended) with the insurance. Also on the ship is the super-hot conwoman Famke Janssen who turns out to be a jewelry thief.

Is that enough awesome for you?  No?  How about if it also takes place during a huge storm?  Oh, and we throw in some SEA MONSTERS!

Yes, once the crew boards the ship, they find it mysteriously empty (and bloody) and continually have to fight off these giant tentacles that can eat you alive!  Seriously, you’re alive as the tentacles digest you because they cut one open and this guy falls out, still conscious but missing, like, half his face.  The plan quickly changes from robbing the ship to getting the hell out of there.  Eventually the crew gets split up and these things start picking them off one by one.  There honestly isn’t a single dull moment in this movie and the climax is amazing.  And I mean the driving-a-jet-ski-through-an-explosion-while-firing-a-shotgun-with-super-hot-Famke-Janssen kind of amazing.

I find it interesting that there are no heroes in the film.  Finnegan and his crew are acting as wheelmen (helm-men?) for the heist, super-hot Famke is a thief, the ship’s owner is a greedy, selfish bastard and the mercenaries are cold-blooded killers.  The only thing more villainous than our “protagonists” is the deadly sea creature.

Final Rating:  Seven tentacles up.   
I can’t figure out why this movie wasn’t a big hit.  Sure, the dialogue isn’t groundbreaking and the film itself isn’t an allegory or anything complicated but it’s still a damn good time.  Super-hot Famke Janssen had just come off of Goldeneye and the role of Finnegan was originally offered to Harrison Ford.  Although once he turned it down, the film’s budget was slashed considerably, turning it from a potential summer blockbuster to a solid B-Monster movie.  Highly-recommended!