I had absolutely no plans to see Underwater last year even though it came out well before the pandemic really hit the United States as hard as it would. It was a horror movie with a January release. As scary as the trailer looked, it probably was going to be lame like most January releases. I would be using my AMC Stubs A-List passes for the Oscar bait that doesn’t come out in my neck of the woods until then anyway. Why bother when there was bound to be much better stuff coming out then anyway?
Then I found it got some decent audience scores at least from Rotten Tomatoes, and some of the reviews I read made it sound at least intriguing enough to check out. It might not be much, but it could at least be theoretically better than most January release horror movies.
Deep in the depths of the ocean is Kepler 822, a research and drilling platform. As engineer Norah Price (Kristen Stewart) is finishing up brushing her teeth one morning, what feels like a massive earthquake hits the platform, causing numerous breaks through the hull and it is only through quick thinking and a little bit of dumb luck that Norah and another member of the crew, Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie), manage to seal some doors shut before they drown, and not everyone was so lucky. The two head off to find some escape pods, hooking up with Paul (TJ Miller) along the way. The final survival count is pretty low, but includes the captain, Lucien (Vincent Cassel), a biologist (Jessica Henwick), another engineer (John Gallagher Jr), and one other guy (Gunner Wright). The pods are all gone, the platform won’t last much longer, and the survivors will need to don pressurized diving suits and walk along the ocean’s floor to another platform a mile away if they want to have any hope to survive.
Small problem: the earthquake may not have been caused by plate tectonics. There’s some unknown species alive down there, and they are fast and unfriendly.
OK, so, let’s get the obvious out the way first: this is not a great movie. But it isn’t a terrible one either. It could be just a “good for January” sort of movie, but it most definitely isn’t one that is all that deep in terms of theme or subject matter. It is maybe closest to Ridley Scott’s original Alien in terms of plot and structure, but Scott’s movie managed to do a lot more with a similar premise. We have dwindling number of survivors in a hostile environment, people who are basically professionals who know what they’re doing, and some mystery things are picking them off one by one. But then this movie adds the additional factor that the survivors need to step into the hostile things’ own turf to survive, and whatever these things are, they are every bit as mysterious and unrelentingly hostile as the Xenomorph.
Actually, that last sentence may not be entirely correct as the revelation at the end of the movie could provide a number of answers, sort of, to fans of a particular horror mythos.
But, if you shut your brain down, this was rather fun, somewhat smart in how it handled everything, and even provided some decent jumpscares. Again, it’s not brilliant or an all-time classic, but Stewart does fine in the lead role, and there may be something there for casual horror fans. Considering what horror movie I did go to see in January of 2020, I know I would have been better off with this one.
Grade: B-
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