Deep Blue Sea turns 21 today, and in honor of its birthday, here are 21 reasons why it’s the The Shawshank Redemption of genetically modified shark movies (it’s a prison escape film disguised as a slasher shark thriller).
If you love Deep Blue Sea, make sure to listen to Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast. You will love it.
1. The initial attack on the catamaran is a scouting mission.
The Generation 1 shark (nicknamed Steve McQueen by the folks of Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast – fun show) jumped over the Aquatica fence (Mako sharks can jump up to nine meters) and wanted to see how long it would take for the Aquatica crew to chase it down. Notice how it immediately goes limp when Carter Blake shoots it with the tranquilizers.. It’s at this moment that the sharks realize they need to bring Aquatica down because they are obviously being tracked, and if they escape again, they’ll just be tracked again. Also, I’d love to see how Carter dragged it back to its watery jail
2. Picking Mako Sharks was smart
They have the largest brain to body ratio and are the fastest sharks in the ocean (watch the movie you’ll understand), and it makes sense that they would be engineered at the Aquatica, which is located off the coast of Mexico, because they don’t do well in captivity. They would need an ocean prison. It’s just another example of why Deep Blue Sea is better than you might think (or you love it immensely, and are just looking for an echo chamber of DBS love).
3. The Blu-ray commentary by Renny Harlin and Samuel L. Jackson is excellent
Harlin and Samuel L. Jackson share some excellent stories in the commentary. You’ll learn a lot about the making of the film. For instance, the Production Designers Joseph Bennett and William Sandell installed linoleum floors in the Aquatica, this is why everyone is slipping around. Also, Jackson makes some funny jokes about Michael Rappaport.
4. There’s a story about a Tiger shark stealing a truck and driving it to Baja
After Carter Blake pulls the license plate out of a Tiger’s shark’s mouth. He and Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) have a discussion about a tiger shark stealing a car in Louisiana and driving it to Baja Mexico. I’d love to see a shark make an 1,818 mile trek in a stolen truck. I know it’s a joke, but I love the visual, and it reminds me of the Michael Myers road trip data piece I wrote.
5. Walt Conti’s animatronic sharks are beautiful
The animatronic sharks are beautiful in Deep Blue Sea. Walt Conti (Anaconda, Free Willy) crushed it, and it’s neat that he used aerospace technology to create the sharks. The sharks are featured in the film a lot, and if you look closely you’ll notice that they are constantly swimming around in the background. How cool would it be to be the person on set with the remote control that steered the massive sharks around? You’d never want to leave. Here’s a neat documentary that will show you how they were made.
6. Janice Higgins is an absolute boss at dropping expository dialogue
Janice Higgins (Jacqueline McKenzie) is an expository dialogue machine. She crushes the insane amount of dialogue she has to dump on Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson). The expository dialogue comes across naturally, and it never feels overly obvious. It’s smart that she’s giving Russell Franklin a tour, because he and the viewer are new to the world. It’s filmmaking 101 (a new person is introduced, to make the world easier to explain), but she does a solid job making the dialogue feel fresh.
7. The Aquatica layout makes sense and is perfectly described to us
Deep Blue Sea goes out of its way to describe the layout of the Aquatica. Whether it’s the overhead shots, or Janice Higgins describing everything. There are maps everywhere, and it helps during the chaos. If you pay attention, and follow the characters journey, you know exactly where they are. I’ve written in-depth MFF posts about the layout of the aquatica, read them!
8. Throw away moments are very important. For instance, there’s a moment when Dr. Susan McAlester, senses that a shark is watching her in her room. It will be very important later on.
The sharks sees where her research is when she takes it out of her locker, and that’s why it’s waiting for her later on, so he can surprise her and destroy the data, so no sharks will ever be “Frankensteined” again. Seriously, why else would it not attack her immediately? The shark attacks when she takes the hard drive from the locker. It knew she would come back for it. It’s a tinfoil theory, but it makes sense to me
9. There’s a surprising amount of dancing
The teenagers dance in the boat, Janet dances in the tower, the departing crew dance on the boat, and the Aquatica crew dance during the party. This doesn’t make the movie great, it’s just an odd observation.
10. Carter Blake is very good at three things. Shooting, Swimming and Grabbing
- He proves his shooting prowess in the beginning when he harpoons the shark.
- He’s totally cool swimming with sharks
- He grabs onto license plates, shark fins and anything else he can grab when he is slipping and sliding. Also, at the end, he grabs onto the fence to avoid blowing up. He then swims back to Preacher.
11. Renny Harlin wanted to feature the sharks A LOT. Dude had no problem showing lots of sharks. Alejandra Aja did the same thing in Crawl. Two watery classics.
Harlin knew modern audiences wanted to see more sharks, so he made sure audiences got what they wanted. The sharks are a constant presence, and there are copious set pieces that revolve around their attacks. They are the driving force of the movie, and it’s refreshing.
12. Preacher and his bird are the best. Shea Serrano agrees
In the footnotes of Movies (And Other Things), Shea Serrano mentions that he almost wrote a chapter about badasses with birds. It makes me happy. Preacher (LL Cool J) is going to have a great story to tell. He was the chef at a research facility that has been illegally genetically modifying sharks and the sharks tried to escape. He survives multiple attacks and he blows up two of them. He’s going to have some serious scars, and I wonder if he’ll get some money from Chimera.
13. During the final fight, When the shark is trying to shred the fence, its eyes are closed
When sharks attack, they typically close their eyes, It’s a nice touch. Renny Harlin’s Commentary covers everything. There is also a fun discussion about the final fight here.
14. Chimera Pharmaceuticals is an excellent name for the fictional pharmaceutical company in Deep Blue Sea
Russell Franklin owns Chimera pharmaceuticals, the company that funds McAlester’s devious studies. In Greek mythology, it’s a fire-breathing female monster with a lion’s head, a goat’s body, and a serpent’s tail. – The sharks are genetically modified, and they’ll never really be comfortable anywhere because they are a hybrid.
15. The twitching leg
The death of Tom Scoggins is ultra gnarly. The shark rips him in half, and his legs are left twitching in the water. It’s awesome.
16. There is a neat Herman Melville reference.
When Janice is showing Franklin the sharks, she says “beneath this glassy surface, a world of gliding monsters.” It’s a wonderful quote. It’s very reminiscent of the Herman Melville quote, “Beneath those stars, is a universe of gliding monsters.” Also, read Bartleby the Scrivener. It’s one of my favorite short stories.
17. Preacher stabs a shark in the eye with a crucifix
A character named Preacher stabs a shark with a crucifix. It’s amazing. Also, check this out.
In 1999
- Deep Blue Sea – LL Cool J plays a character named Preacher
- In Too Deep – He plays a character named God
- Any Given Sunday – He plays on the Sharks, and they play mostly on Sundays.
- In 1998, He acted in Halloween H20…..
18. The Explosion at the end is insane. An improvised explosive creates an explosion big enough to OBLITERATE the giant shark
It’s a comically large explosion, and it completely obliterates the shark. Watch the clip. The explosion is huge.
19. The moment when the Gen 2 flashes it’s huge teeth is a thing of beauty. Let’s focus on the solid CGI for a while
Too much focus has been placed on the subpar 1999 CGI. Let’s celebrate a badass moment. Start the clip at the :40 second mark
20. Jim Whitlock drops a sweet quote
Hearing Stellan Skargard say “Sharks are the oldest creatures on the planet……from a time when the world was just flesh and teeth,” never gets old. It’s a great line during the party scene.
21. People much smarter than me have written about its greatness
Brian Raftery (who wrote Best. Movie. Year. Ever. How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen) wrote an article for Wired about why it’s the best shark movie ever. It’s a solid read.
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast #292: Back to the Future, Buttheads and the Power of Love
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If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re talking about the 1985 classic Back to the Future. We’re starting a time travel podcast series, and it felt right to start with Back to the Future. It’s hard not to love the Robert Zemeckis directed film, because it’s an almost perfect examination of what happens when a kid in high school travels from 1985 to 1955, and then tries to go back to the future. In this episode, we discuss movie jerks, skateboarding, and the power of love. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
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MY CALL: I was really unimpressed with this. That said, it also wasn’t a regrettable viewing. There were so decent gore gags to be enjoyed. I’d just rank this very low among “worth a watch” 80s slashers since there are simply so many better ones. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Mutilator: Looking for more (and hopefully much better) early 80s slashers? I’d recommend Maniac (1980), Happy Birthday to Me (1981), The Prowler (1981), The Burning (1981) and Pieces (1982).
After a young boy accidentally kills his mother while playing with his father’s guns (I guess there’s a message here), the boy’s understandably upset father drags his dead wife into the den, pours himself some birthday whiskey, and becomes a disturbed alcoholic for the next ten years. Now in college, that boy has grown up and he has to clean up his father’s beach condo. So he invites his classmates to join him for the long weekend.
This movie makes no effort to keep secrets from its viewers. We know his father is the killer as soon as they arrive to the beach house. He skulks around with minimally convincing menace and has stashed weapons in the garage storage room where he hides out like the Black Christmas (1974) killer in the attic.
As was the style at the time (i.e., the early 80s slasher era), all of the kills needed to be very different. The death scenes start out weak, but build some inertia with every additional kill (not that they ever develop into anything impressive). The pool scene is stupid, with as boring a death scene (if you even call it that) as one could imagine. At least it’s quickly followed by a gory chainsaw death scene (even if we never see chainsaw meet flesh, the blood and wounds looked good). Next is a fence post stabbed to the face followed by a nice gory decapitation. Most memorable for me, however, was the fisherman’s gaff brutally hooked up a woman’s you-know-what as she watched!!! Knowing it was the father the whole time didn’t help the lame ending. But at least that final death had a sloppy gory de-torso-capitation.
I was worried this would be complete dribble. I guess, after a dreadfully slow and boring start, this was actually pleasantly surprising even if still not very good or easily recommendable. There are just too many better slashers from the early 80s one should watch before getting around to this for the sake of completeness (as was the case for me). Still, I didn’t exactly regret it. After all, there were some decent gory gags to be enjoyed.
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MY CALL: I was quite pleased with this movie. It strikes a good balance between funny, gory and mean, and the pacing is steady to keep you entertained throughout while cultivating awkward laughs. MORE MOVIES LIKE Yummy: For more recently made quality zombedies, aim for Cooties (2015), Zombeavers (2014), REC 3: Genesis (2012), Scout’s Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse (2015), Cabin Fever 2 (2009), Dead Snow (2009), Zombieland (2009) and, of course, Shaun of the Dead (2004).
Unhappy with her excessively ample chest, Alison (Maaike Neuville) is traveling to a shady Eastern European hospital specializing in discount plastic surgery for her breast reduction. Joining her is her supportive boyfriend Michael (Bart Hollanders) and her disapproving mother Sylvia (Annick Christiaens), who wants yet another facelift.
We are introduced to this film’s gross sense of humor when a not-quite-roadkilled animal, with its innards exposed as it still squeaks, is run over (again) splattering across a man’s clothes and face. Between that and Sylvia’s incessant advice that Alison keep and treasure the “gifts” she was given duly inform the tone of the film.
While Alison is getting her pre-surgery consultation and prep, Michael wanders an apparently unused wing of the hospital and encounters a naked patient bound to a hospital bed with a sort of muzzle over her mouth. When he frees the restrained patient, I’m reminded of the ending of Deadgirl (2008) signaling the zombie pandemonium to begin swiftly thereafter.
A cautionary tale for the use of stem cell treatments, our Eastern European doctors at this facility are using aborted fetuses to fuel stem cell research in rejuvenation. But, like what happened with Resident Evil’s (2002) or Rabid’s (2019) research, it ran afoul of flesh-eating monsters. Have movies like The Rejuvenator (1988) and Re-Animator (1985) taught us nothing?
Quite gory with graphic fleshy bites, awesome guts work and squishy head trauma, this movie is a gore-slathered delight. We also enjoy a zombie eating its own intestines and leaking its own consumed ooze, a head gets crushed into chunky chunder chum, a man’s “you know what” gets lit on fire in a rather gross scene, a giant salamander fetus is zombified, and there’s a lot of projectile vomit.
Salamander SIDEBAR: You may be wondering why it is that there was a salamander in one of the labs. This may seem random to most viewers. But it’s actually a nice touch. Salamanders are the subject of much research in regeneration and evolutionary biology for their ability to regenerate surgically removed spinal vertebrae (among limbs and other things). This is no joke or exaggeration. In grad school, I took a class under a professor conducting such research and likewise had another EvoDevo salamander researcher on my graduate committee. So really, this zombie salamander was a surprisingly insightful touch.
This movie does a good job cultivating awkward laughs. For example, when a recent amputee about to fall to his death reaches with his now-missing arm for help, or when a man’s not-yet-healed penile enhancement is painfully prompted for intercourse.
For his first feature film, writer and director Lars Damoiseaux certainly succeeded at making me smile, wince, grimace and giggle at this gross zombedy. The movie packs a lot of gross effects, a consistent energy and pacing, and a mean ending.
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The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re talking about the 1977 masterpiece Sorcerer. Directed by William Friedkin, and starring Roy Scheider, Sorcerer focuses on four dirtbags driving through a dense jungle, so they can blow up an oil fire (it’s amazing. Watch Wages of Fear too). It’s an incredibly tense film, and we love how grimy and dangerous it all feels. In this episode, we discuss the troubled production, terrible bridges and mud puddles. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean,or Spreaker.
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The Witch: Part 1: The Subversion (2018; aka, Manyeo), another awesomely shocking Korean action movie.
MY CALL: This film begins slow and interesting for 60 minutes, then shifts into full-tilt Matrix-meets-Wick-like action for the final 30 minutes… and it is brutal! Very stylish, edgy, hyper-violent movie. MORE MOVIES LIKE The Witch: For more brutal superhuman action, take a stab at Lucy (2014), Upgrade (2018) or The Night Comes for Us (2018).
The opening scene of this film reminded me of a more brutally dire iteration of Morgan (2016) or The Darkest Minds (2018) as a “modified” 8-year old girl escapes from the facility of her creation with no memory of her past or her identity. Ten years later, Koo Ja Yoon (Da-mi Kim) has been raised by the farmers who found her nearly dead and she has lived a completely normal life as their Tomboy daughter; basically like a female Clark Kent in Smallville, South Korea. And with that the tone of the film is very light during our introduction to Ja Yoon’s simple family life as a high schooler. In fact, the first hour is quite slow and relatively actionless while we get hints of Ja Yoon’s abilities and her past slowly catches up with her.
But after this slow (but certainly not uninteresting) hour, in just one scene the film shifts from a soft PG-13 to a very hard-boiled R complete with abrupt limb breaks and tandem face-splattering palm strikes. And once we entire the final act—once all the cards are on the table—things shift into a full-tilt action meltdown of heads splatting against walls, rapid stabbings to vital organs, bloody free fire gun fights, and some Mr. Anderson vs Agent Smith-inspired fighting.
The special effects and choreography are pretty slick. This is especially showcased when someone is thrown with Thanos-like strength into walls or launched through them with Hulk-thrusting kicks. And, boy, is the third act violence mean. People are getting dismantled with a gleeful smile and going down in brutal style.
Ultimately, we spend a looooong time quietly waiting for action to blossom in this film. Whether or not it’s worth it depends more on the type of viewer you are. If you expected Korean John Wick, then you might be woefully disappointed by the complete lack of action spanning long runs of this film. But if you are on board for the story and wish to collect occasional Matrix-meets-Wick-like action scenes even when not the major theme of the movie, then this will suit you better. But I will say, even if you are the full-throttle John Wick former and not the collector latter, the last 30 minutes packs in an entire movie’s worth of action. And whereas the sum of the action may pale to John Wick 1-3 (2014-2019) or The Night Comes for Us (2018), it’s still a LOT of awesome shoehorned in that half hour. So, writer and director Hoon-jung Park (I Saw the Devil, The Tiger, The Showdown) has wowed us yet again with his firm grasp on shocking violence.
This was titled as a part 1, so we all know there will be more and the film ends on an obvious cue as to what comes next.
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Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast – Chapter 3: Fanta-Sea Island, Grouper Curls and Chekhov’s Shark Riding
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Chapter 3! This week we’re covering “Louisiana License,” the third chapter on the Deep Blue Sea DVD. In honor of this iconic section of the film, we brought in Zanandi Botes (she joined me for the popular Doctor Sleep MFF podcast episode), an excellent writer, and Deep Blue Sea superfan. In this episode, we discuss working out with grouper fish, swimming with sharks, and insane cross-country road trips. Enjoy!
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The Movies, Films and Flix Podcast #290: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Spin Kicks and Ernie Reyes Jr.
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The MFF podcast is back, and this week we’re discussing the 1990 blockbuster Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Directed by Steve Barron, this PG-rated film managed to be kid friendly, super gritty and very fun. The film is loaded with iconic visuals (Leo in the bathroom) and filled with creative fight scenes featuring masked ninjas and teenager turtles. In this episode, we discuss Ernie Reyes Jr., pizza delivery, and comic book movies. Enjoy!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean,or Spreaker.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean, or Spreaker (or wherever you listen to podcasts…..we’re almost everywhere).
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
The MFF podcast is back, and this week Chris Kelly (of the Classic American Movies podcast) joined us to discuss the 2001 cult classic comedy Out Cold. Directed by Emmett and Brendan Malloy, this cheeky comedy features some solid gags, and an excellent cast including Zach Galifianakis, A.J. Cook, Thomas Lennon, Lee Majors, David Koechner, Willie Garson, David Denman, Caroline Dhavernas and Jason London. In this episode, we discuss seizing carp, Casablanca, Weezer and the comedies of the early 2000s. Enjoy!
Also, Chris Kelly interviewed director Emmett Malloy about the film for his Classic American Movies podcast. Check it out!
If you are a fan of the podcast, make sure to send in some random listener questions so we can do our best to not answer them correctly. We thank you for listening, and hope you enjoy the episode!
You can download the pod on Apple Podcasts, Tune In, Podbean,or Spreaker.
If you get a chance please make sure to review, rate and share. You are awesome!
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Deep Blue Sea – The Podcast: Chapter 2: Giamatti Uncut, Helicopter Music and Sharks in Sweden
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Chapter 2! This week we’re covering Alcatraz Floats, the second chapter on the Deep Blue Sea DVD. In honor of this fantastic scene, we brought in a fantastic guest, Nicholas Rehak (French Toast Sunday, Exploding Helicopter, Gary and the Rancors) to help us over-analyze the chapter. In this episode, we discuss Paul Giamatti’s ficitonal deleted scenes, sharks chasing Elvis, and the classic film Sharks in Sweden. Enjoy
Movies, Films & Flix 