What Lurks Beneath

The movie ended up being frustrating because the potential was there. The acting was serviceable to decent, especially given the script they had to work with. They tried to blend a war film with horror elements, and really squandered the horror potential. They did not use the claustrophobic setting effectively at all, and didn't focus on the "woman" and her abilities nearly enough. The writers didn't seem to know of a way to keep the woman in the sub without making the characters, who otherwise seemed competent, repeatedly notice and then immediately begin to ignore all of the strange happenings that began immediately after finding her in the torpedo tube, which should have been the first clue that she had to be dealt with. A better written and directed version of this movie could have been described as a cross between Alien and Dr. Strangelove, but this ultimately just ended up being another waste of potential, which is a shame for the fairly unknown cast. 5 stars because the concept had enough potential to get me to the end of the film without really wanting to turn it off.

Acting is almost daytime soap opera quality. For this to be a naval sub, it seems very small, and the crew limited. The movie is obviously filmed on a tiny budget. I am not a sailor or in the military, but the captain gives direct orders and they are not followed through. The captain never questions his crew, nor does he follow up on the orders he gave his crew. I have to blame the writing and direction on why this was so poor. There is a serious lack of motives, from the crew and the creature.

The creature. Isn't scary, sexy, but is more of a poor subplot or a MacGuffin device to keep you watching. The special effects are also budgeted, but I have never graded a movie on eye candy. There is so little blood or violence. I would say it would be rated PG-13 or TV14 at best. Removing the creature from this story and what you have is badly written version of Crimson Tide or some other nuclear submarine psychological thriller.

In the end, this movie isn't good enough to watch for content. It isn't campy and thus not a good cheesy movie. It just exists and I hope that director Jamie Bailey and writer Marcus Raul find new career paths.

Another case of a potentially decent cast, at least some of them, in search of a script.

I usually do a quick flip thru before I watch the movie to see what is in store and was kinda impressed. One or two stages were OK for a budget film, almost good. As to rest, let's just say it is likely that the director and crew never bothered to visit any of the over 200 submarines on display, nor watched any of the many good submarine movies out there.

Don't expect much from the acting. Not sure many of them even watched a good navy film to get into character. A few exceptions maybe.

But worst of all is the script. The specific events that make, or more often break, the movie are completely unbelievable. Good Sci-fi movies can make you believe in anything because they make sure the setup and the expected basics (the hows, the cast reactions, etc) are believable. Not this movie. You barely start down the path of believing something and then it falls apart quite quickly.

The only reason to watch this is to see how to take a possible 3 to 4 star movie, and make it a 1 or 2. (I gave 2 only because I saw something in a few cast members.)

Relative novice director Jamie Baily and first time writer Marcus Raul have attempted a serious and poignant horror thriller that becomes one of the most torturous movies to rate because it has an apparent number of inscrutable rational flaws of logic and military behavior involving a nuclear submarine, its members, a well performed female stranger, and possible World War III (reminiscent of the television series Outer Limits, 1995-2002) devastation along with an extremely difficult job of including a number of subplots that get awkwardly entangled into the movie. From the beginning, writer Rual has a difficult time incorporating important plot points that seem to control the script in ways are arbitrarily inserted in places that don't feel natural. The attempt to tie the climax with a fragile relational dilemma, behind the scenes secrets between the American Naval members and the British Intel operators seem unnecessarily uneven. Nevertheless the sincerity of the attempt at a pure consistent narrative structure throughout the movie along with the dramatic and emotional ending holds itself up well. This movie is worth one viewing for its depth of substance incorporating a series of neat Naval command protocols usually overlooked in average military movies, the number of authentic feeling human doubts, and the strength of the main plot that make this movie barely survive its higher rating.

When I sat down to watch the 2024 horror movie "What Lurks Beneath" here in 2025, I had never even heard about the movie. But the movie's cover was interesting enough to make me stop up and pick up the movie. Sure, I virtually didn't know what I was in for here, aside from whatever little information was shared by the movie's synopsis. So I suppose that writer Marcus Raul and director Jamie Bailey had every opportunity to entertain me.

The narrative in the movie is sluggishly paced, and that makes sitting through "What Lurks Beneath" somewhat of a struggle. There wasn't really a whole lot of exciting things taking place throughout the slow paced narrative. Writer Marcus Raul didn't really pull of an overly great script here for director Jamie Bailey to bring to the movie.

The only familiar faces on the cast list, for me at least, were Simon Phillips, Anne-Carolyne Binette and Nick Biskupek. The acting performances in the movie were fair.

Visually then the movie was okay. It was not a movie that boasted a whole lot of special effects, but whatever effects were in the movie were fair enough.

The sets in the movie were good, though. It certainly does look and feel like a narrow and crammed submarine.

Watchable, if you don't sit down with too high expectations, but hardly a movie that I would recommend you to rush out and get to watch. Nor is it a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time.

My rating of director Jamie Bailey's 2024 movie "What Lurks Beneath" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.