Le Monstre des Profondeurs

In the midst of a tropical storm, the crew of an offshore oil rig must survive the rampage of a creature after invading its undersea habitat.

Although I don't think this film debuted on SyFy, it belongs there. It's of low budget, little original plot, and just all around lesser quality. I can say, thank goodness, this did not have the horrible special effects of SyFy (actually, some of the gore was decent).

William Forsythe is the alleged star, his name even appearing before the film's title. Well, that's a tough call. He's not the main character, and he is outacted by his mustache in a few scenes. So, unless you're a die-hard Forsythe fan, don't expect him to be the key to this film's success.

The DVD has a misleading cover image, making the monster look gigantic. It's much more humanoid. And there is a subplot of a brother story... for why? It's not important to the story at all, and adds a thin sentimentality to this film. Very thin.

The one thing I can praise them for is that this movie was shot on location at Charlie rig (now a museum in Louisiana). As far as authentic scenery goes, you can't get much more real than this. An actual rig!

If you're wondering why, with a summary like that, I can only give it 1 out of 10, let me explain.

If someone can take a script this bad and a cast so poor and still persuade people to hand their money over to it, then, if you're an aspiring movie maker, you should be ecstatic.

It has absolutely everything bad you can think of in a movie: Horrendously poor editing; a completely pointless flashback to a few minutes earlier, in black and white to remind you (if you're a complete idiot) what just happened; dreadful, tinny low budget music to match the low budget set; and a man in a plastic monkey suit grabbing people in a quick blur of camera motion while someone throws fake blood around.

And dialogue that's so poor that if they had managed to hire a cast of decent actors they would have ended up shaking their heads at the inanity of it all.

There are some tits in it. That ought to double the viewing audience.

Give this one a wide berth unless you have the choice of watching this or sticking map pins into your eyeballs.

This movie makes absolutely no sense and was written by people who have absolutely no idea of work safety regulations... people die all the time on that drilling platform and the staff acts like if they simply deserted - there is no emotion, no stress, no documenting what happened, just sex scenes and stupid dialogue.

I understand they had no budget, but that no excuse for lazy writing and pathetic acting. Roger Corman made movies on shoestring budgets but never sank that low.

I'm surprised the director ever found another job.

You know the boring parts of a porn that you just fast forward through until the "actors" are done talking? Well that is this entire movie! I'm talking about bad lighting, awful dialog, terrible editing (scenes are drawn out way too long, with awkward moments of nothing going on), and unforgivable monster attacks that show too little of a monster that looks like it was made in a middle school art class. I can't believe the cast and crew were even able to see this thing through to completion. The only reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 1 is for the brave men and women who selfishly destroyed their reputations for the sake of not giving up on something you started. One star movies are filmed with a cell phone in a junk yard, at least they got someone to rent them an oil rig.

THE RIG is another nondescript monster-on-the-loose story, made foul by an almost non-existent budget and a distinct lack of imagination. Indeed, the paucity of creative energy is evident in this film's paint-by-numbers script, which tells exactly the same kind of story as has already been done dozens of times before by better directors with bigger budgets.

In this one, the crew of an oil rig find themselves menaced by a monster from the ocean floor, although there aren't many explanations on offer. It all boils down to a man in a rubber suit – or what looks like a child in this case – running around and killing overacting cast members in slapdash ways. Attempts at poverty-row gore effects are pitiful and the acting from the no name cast is even worse, not that it mattered when the characters are so clichéd to begin with. The only actors I recognised were THE BRING remake's Art LaFleur and OUT FOR JUSTICE's William Forsythe, neither or whom can readily be described as stars.

In the end, the things that really bring THE RIG down are the lack of money and the lack of experience on the part of the director. It just looks cheap and cheesy throughout, and not in a good way. There are no surprises, no well-directed scenes of suspense or action, just a mindless mess of watered-down and hackneyed scenarios done before and better.