1989- Hollywood’s Year Underwater

 

1989- Hollywood’s Year Underwater

                Webster defines coincidence as 1) the act or condition of coinciding 2) the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.

Certainly, Hollywood tends to focus on trends (i.e. concepts that have proven to make money) and occasionally we see clusters of films arrive close together that seem to cover the same ground. 1997 featured 2 volcano themed disaster movies (Dante’s Peak and Volcano) that were in the theatre only a few months apart. The summer of 1998 featured even bigger disaster films with Deep Impact and Armageddon, arriving back to back, each featuring world destroying asteroids. Gerard Butler and Channing Tatum both tried to save the President in 2013 (White House Down and Olympus Has Fallen).

But 1989 featured not two, not three, but at least four movies with themes and plots so similar that its difficult to remember which plot was which and which star was in which film. They run the gamut of scope and budget from a cheap B movie to a major studio event film.  Deep Star Six, Leviathan, Lords of the Deep and The Abyss all feature science fiction/ horror stories taking place almost entirely underwater, featuring recognizable but clearly advanced technology pitting working class humans against strange creatures in the ocean’s depths (a fifth movie, The Evil Below, with June Chadwick, is often inappropriately lumped in with this group but its neither science fiction nor thematically similar, it just features scuba divers).

So what was responsible for this rush to the ocean’s depths? There is no obvious thing to point to but there are a few things that possibly contributed to it.

First, America’s love of space themed science fiction had been going strong for 40 years, beginning almost as soon as WW2 ended. The exploration of space, and the fiction that went with it, was seen as generally optimistic and almost always exciting. Its possible that by the 1980s the public passion for this had begun to wane. Probably, Ronald Reagan’s proposed “Star Wars program” ( which was presented to the public, perhaps inaccurately, as a string of killer satellites surrounding the globe) put a bit of a damper on public optimism. Certainly, the Challenger explosion in 1986 changed public opinion and ground American space exploration to a halt for a very long time. So, it’s possible that science fiction, as a genre, turned its attention away from the stars to the equally mysterious ocean depths.

In 1985, oceanographer Bob Ballard discovered the long lost wreck of the Titanic, the ship that had preoccupied western imaginations since its disastrous sinking over 70 years earlier. The next year, Ballard returned to the wreck and was able to produce detailed pictures that captured the public’s attention and probably got the gears turning in the heads of creative types in Hollywood. Certainly, it got the attention of James Cameron who would direct The Abyss and later devote a significant chunk of his career to The Titanic.

Speaking of James Cameron, circa 1989, he might have been the hottest commodity in show business. He directed Terminator in 1984, which was an immediate hit and became one of the most important science fiction films of all time. He followed that up with Aliens, which made its budget back five times over and was nominated for seven Oscars, winning two. Cameron had had the idea for The Abyss for years but finally wrote a script for it in 1987 and then began the monumental task of pre-production before beginning filming in late 1988.

Given Cameron’s recent track record of success, it’s easy to imagine various Hollywood executives saying “hey that James Cameron is doing an underwater pic, maybe we should do one too.” This was most definitely the case with Roger Corman’s Lords of the Deep. Corman always had an uncanny ability to predict success and hop on board before the train left the station (case in point, Corman’s low budget Carnosaur which beat Jurassic Park by a few months and was able to cash in on the dinosaur craze that Jurassic Park created).

So possibly that explains how the stage was set for Hollywood’s year of sub aquatic adventure. But how do the films compare? And what has been their legacy?

Deep Star Six

Released January 13, 1987

Director-Sean S. Cunningham

Cast- Greg Evigan, Nancy Everhard, Miguel Ferrer, Nia Peeples, Matt McCoy, Taurean Blacque, Marius Weyers

                The first of 1989’s undersea movies featured a mixed crew of civilians and U.S. Naval personnel winding down their tour at an undersea military base. The group is developing undersea colonization while also installing a missile platform.  The scientist (Nia Peeples) discovers an undersea cavern and wants to study its ecosystem, much to the dismay of the company man (Wyers) who wants to stay on schedule for installing the missile platform.

                Disregarding the promise of science, the suit uses explosives to destroy the cavern. The explosion opens up a fissure in the sea bed and a prehistoric predator escapes out of it, terrorizing the aquatic explorers. The alpha male of the group is played by Greg Evigan, who was pretty familiar to 80s audiences from his starring role in BJ and the Bear as well as costarring in the sitcom My Two Dads. There are other actors that sci-fi and horror fans might recognize, chief among them being Miguel Ferrer (Robocop, The Stand, The Guardian, The Night Flier, and Twin Peaks).

                The film benefited from a veteran director. Sean Cunningham, who had directed the original Friday the 13^th  and served as a producer for several more Friday films and had worked with Wes Craven.  The movie’s monster, which looked like the offspring of a worm and a crustacean, looked OK, but was probably a bit too exotic to translate well to the screen. Overall though, the movie was a competent sci-fi/horror film that served as the opening salvo for the wave of movies that year.

Leviathan

Released March 17, 1987

Director- George P. Cosmatos

Cast- Peter Weller, Amanda Pays, Richard Crenna, Ernie Hudson, Daniel Stern, Lisa Eilbacher, Michael Carmine, Héctor Elizondo, Meg Foster

                Leviathan followed hot on the heels of Deep Star Six and given that movies stayed in the theatres longer in the 80s, its easy to imagine audiences showing up not quite sure which movie they intended to see.

                A crew of undersea miners is supervised by a geologist (Peter Weller) who answers to a corporate suit (Meg Foster). In the process of their work, the miners find a lost, sunken Soviet submarine. Some of the crew members become contaminated by a substance brought back from the sub. As is later revealed, the Soviets were experimenting with genetic engineering in an attempt to create warriors perfectly suited to undersea life. The result is that anyone exposed to the mutagen transforms into a sea monster.

                Leviathan was helmed by a director with some serious credits to his name. Cosmatos had directed Rambo: First Blood Part 2 (where he also worked with Richard Crenna who plays the doctor in Leviathan) and Cobra. After Leviathan he went on to direct what was the last great Western, Tombstone. The film has the most recognizable cast for genre fans. In addition to Peter Weller (Robocop, Naked Lunch, Screamers) and Richard Crenna, Enrie Hudson (Ghostbusters and The Crow) has a big part along with Amanda Pays (The Flash, Max Headroom, The Kindred) and Meg Foster (Masters of the Universe, They Live, Lords of Salem).

                Judging by its availability on steaming sites, compared to Deep Star Six, Leviathan has fared better, in the long run, though neither one lit up the box office.

Lords of the Deep

Released April 21, 1987

Director- Mary Ann Fisher

Cast- Priscilla Barnes, Bradford Dillman, Daryl Haney, Melody Ryane, Eb Lottimer, Greg Sobeck, Richard Young, Roger Corman, Stephen Davies

                The most futuristic of the undersea films to come out in 1989, Lords of the Deep is set on an Earth where the ozone layer has been burned away and science is looking for a way to sustain life under the sea.

                A scientist (Priscilla Barnes) is working with a slime she discovered that gives her cosmic visions. Later, one of the crew members is mysteriously turned into the same kind of slime and then starts to evolve into some kind of alien sting ray. The creature escapes and crew members start disappearing. On top of all of this, the corporate suit running the place (Dillman) is trying to use the facility’s computer intelligence to permanently silence anyone who might cause problems with their corporate bottom line.

                Priscilla Barnes is best known as Terry from Three’s Company but also appeared in Mallrats, License to Kill and The Devil’s Rejects. Bradford Dillman had the lead roles in Joe Dante’s Piranha and William Castle’s Bug and had supporting roles opposite of Clint Eastwood in The Enforcer and Sudden Impact.  Besides Barnes and Dillman, the rest of the cast is likely unrecognizable to average horror/ sci-fi fans with the possible exception of Richard Young who fans may recognize from Friday the 13^th V and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

                The film was released in the theatres but I’m sure it was meant to make most, if not all, of its money in the video stores. It would probably have been forgotten if not for its temporal association with 1989’s other underwater films.

The Abyss

Released August 9, 1987

Director- James Cameron

Cast- Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn, Leo Burmester, Todd Graff, John Bedford Lloyd, Kimberly Scott, Chris Elliott, Dick Warlock

                Unlike the first three films which arrived in quick succession, The Abyss didn’t arrive in the theatres until the others were long gone. This was appropriate as it was as different from its predecessors as a filet mignon is from a Big Mac.

                Younger audiences probably only know James Cameron from the CGI fest Avatar and its sequel. But old school Cameron did things practically, no matter the scale. The Abyss was filmed underwater with vast sets and included cutting edge technology that was invented just to make the filming of the movie possible. This paid off with a super realistic film that does not have the slightest whiff of camp or cheapness.

                A group of blue collar oceanic drillers find their underwater platform commandeered by a group of Navy SEALs that are trying to salvage sensitive material from a sunken nuclear submarine. The platform’s designer (Mastrantonio) encounters an undersea alien life form. The lifeform is curious about the humans but runs afoul of the SEALs commander (Biehn) who is slowly losing his mind due to high-pressure neurological syndrome.  The rogue SEAL decides to use a scavenged nuclear warhead to kill the aliens. The foreman of the drillers (Ed Harris), straight from Miller time, has to stop him.

                The Abyss is Cameron’s most ambitious film considering what it took to make it. It  made its money back but was nowhere near the success of Aliens. It was probably a bit too far out and high brow for a mainstream audience but remains a well respected movie among sci-fi fans and movie buffs.

Legacy

                Those four movies were not the last of the undersea sci-fi/horror films. Another film, The Rift, was slow on the draw and didn’t hit the screens until 1990. Like Lords of the Deep it was low budget, and like Lords of the Deep is probably only remembered because of its association with its better-known competitors.  Hollywood has revisited the ocean depths for science fiction/ horror films a few more times since. Most notable is the star studded cast of Sphere (1998) and Underwater (2020). Underwater is a pretty competent sci-fi horror film that might have fared better except that it hit the screens the same time as Covid-19 hit America, dooming it to failure (along with most other Hollywood productions that year).

                Deep Star Six and Leviathan have both become cult films, but are essentially niche films for fans of sci-fi/horror and monster movies. The Abyss’ greatest legacy is probably less the film itself and more the advancements in CGI that the film necessitated.  James Cameron, like George Lucas, has been as much of a film innovator as a film maker.

                For the most part though, Hollywood  doesn’t seem to have much stomach to spend a lot of time underwater anymore. One reason may be cost. Sphere, Deep Star Six, and Leviathan struggled just to make their initial budget back, while Underwater was a financial failure. The Abyss doubled its budget in profits but Cameron’s next film Terminator 2 quintupled its budget. So the public interest in underwater movies may not be enough to justify the high cost of making a subaquatic epic.  There will still be more undersea sci-fi/horror movies in the future. Certainly ,the shark themed films like Deep Blue Sea and The Meg did well financially. But we probably won’t see a grand aquatic event film on the scale of The Abyss again.