Deep Shock

Near the North Pole, the submarine U.S.S. Jimmy Carter encounters some mysterious objects in the water. It is, of course, impossible for such objects to be truly unknown, so when he can't get answers, the commanding officer just yells in order to get better results.

We don't know exactly what happens, but it can be concluded that it was something terrible. The next thing we see is two scientists--Chomsky and Dr. Anne Fletcher--arguing at a United Nations auditorium over whether there is global warming.

The Hubris, an underwater station, is attacked as well, possibly by the same unknown objects. One crew member pulls a gun in an effort to stop an unwise retaliation whose results are unpredictable. And then whatever happened to the Jimmy Carter happens to them, supposedly. Chomsky, Fletcher and Fletcher's ex, Capt. Andy Raines, are on the team sent to investigate.

The airplane landing at the North Pole is kind of rough (they tell us it's the North Pole, but there's no land there in reality, and yet there is a runway with lights somewhere).

The group boards the Hubris and finds everyone dead, but amazingly, once they get the power back, everything works perfectly. Now they just have to find the cause of what happened. Meanwhile, the United Nations sees only one way to solve the problem: a full-blown nuclear attack. This includes the Jimmy Carter (what, there were two? Oh, maybe they fixed it).

The rest of the movie consists of arguments over how best to handle what Dr. Fletcher determines are electric eels from another planet who regard Earth as theirs and humans as "intruders". Communication with the outside world is disrupted and must be repaired, but it doesn't really matter because the United Nations won't listen to reason. There are some pretty exciting battle scenes and suspense as we wonder if the crew can somehow stop the United Nations.

This movie is pretty much what you'd expect, but some of it is actually better. I thought Capt. Raines and Dr. Fletcher had a couple of pretty good scenes, and Capt. Raines has a nice smile. Their subordinates provide comedy relief, and Chomsky is just a stubborn grouch.

The alien creatures look good, for Saturday morning. But this is live-action and you would hope they'd be realistic.

There is, of course, an important moral here. Aliens may not be as evil as you think, but you just have to know how to deal with them. Most people aren't that patient or knowledgeable. Not something we haven't seen before, though.

It's not too bad if you need something lightweight.

This has to be the cheapest film made in 21st century. It is all the way low quality, but at the end it falls below... everything. All the cheap tricks - like flashing and darkness - are used to hide those crappy computer effects.

All the actors are below average, especially the main character Anne Fletcher (Simmone Mackinnon). There is a scene, where Anne is asked: "Why you seem so careless?" The correct answer is, because she can't act. No matter what happens (the world is about to be destroyed, her friend is dying, she is fired), she has the same stupid grin in her face.

It is not only the movie, which is B -quality. It is also the back cover description (at least in Finland). The text mentions things like Lorica Gray -vessel, Capital -vessel and main character Garrison Harper and Anna (not Anne) Fletcher. The description sounds like a different movie, both featuring character called Fletcher and sea monsters

Yup... another sea creature, oil rig, military tries to deal with creature hamfistedly type straight to video affair. But if you like movies about huge electric eels resembling the creature on the cover of Asia's first album... than this is for you. Especially if you're holding a David Keith film festival. Plenty of drama and tension to be had but the cheap cg sea creatures (say that 5 times fast) are too hokey to provide payoff or menace. Not the worst thing out there for sure but it's nothing you haven't seen already in the last 15-20 years: The Abyss, Deep Star Six, Leviathan etc. etc. All that's really missing is a lesser Baldwin brother.

Well, I can only say the filmmakers tried, at least that's something... And I might also be rather too generous in my rating. But "Deep Shock" is at least worth a little bit more than its poor 1.9/10 IMDb rating (at the time I first saw it; apparently I was right, since it went up to 2.5/10 by now). The film is somewhat of a cross between "The Abyss" (1989) and maybe "Deepstar Six" (1989) and a zillion other "in the deep blue ocean" horror/sci-fi flickies. Juiced up with a lot of questionable CGI and a lame 'ex-wife/ex-husband get back together in the end' subplot. It gets a little credit for the background story that was given to the creatures and how they came to exist. But that's about it, really.

This is the story of giant electric eels, and maybe they're from another planet. I don't know. Everything is pretty vague. They're trying to melt the polar ice cap, apparently so more of them can come to take over the world. There's this female scientist who seems to think this is a marvelous idea, and basically she does everything she can to help them. She's the "hero" of the story. Yeah, pretty good stuff, huh? She also grins at everything. As another reviewer said, she gets fired, she grins. She thinks she's going to die, she grins. She concocts a plan so that the creatures can come back and wipe out mankind later - after she's had a chance to live her life. She grins. Did I mention she's our hero?

David Keith is in it too, playing the same exact character he plays in everything else he's been in lately.

Special effects aren't too bad in spots, but the eels are really silly looking. Looks like they ran out of money near the end and used unpaid interns to finish up the CGI. Acting is awful - the female lead really steals the show in that category but she had plenty of competition.

So in conclusion, if you're just dying to see a whole pile of cheap CGI and really couldn't care less if the story makes any sense or the acting is any good, hey, this is the film for you!