Up from the Depths

The price we paid for the success of "Jaws" was a heavy one, with so many other aquatic killer animal features released in the subsequent years. The "Jaws" spoof "Piranha" is one of the better ones, by far. This is one of the lesser ones. It's a crude, ineffective, even boring "thriller" about a prehistoric monster fish released from imprisonment in the sea after an underwater earthquake. It proceeds to feast upon locals and visitors in the area, including patrons of a resort. Ultimately, many expeditions are launched to find and destroy the fishy menace.

It's hard to care much about this trite story, especially when the presentation, and characters, are so lacking in interesting features. Granted, it does get a shade more amusing once the frequency of fish attacks increases. Special effects are as crude as you could imagine - the more you see of the predator, the more unconvincing and laughable it looks. Attack scenes feature a lot of fake blood in the water, and splashing, but choppy editing where you really don't see very much. Voyeurs will appreciate the amount of female flesh displayed.

Fortunately, the atmosphere and flavor of the location (although set in Hawaii, it was shot in the Philippines) help to make it tolerable. Unfortunately, a lot of the acting is incredibly amateurish. Susanne Reed ('Code R') is a gorgeous, sexy leading lady, but the less said about her performance, the better. However, she's not the worst offender. That dishonor belongs to Kedric Wolfe ("Forbidden Zone"), who's utterly annoying as the high strung resort manager. Familiar faces Sam Bottoms ("Apocalypse Now"), as the young hero, and Virgil Frye ("Revenge of the Ninja"), as his scruffy, surly uncle, do what they can; Frye tends to steal the show.

Only recommended to people who just CAN'T get enough of this genre.

Four out of 10.

After reading about this film for years in magazines and reference books, I finally managed to track down it down some time ago at a local Blockbusters. I honestly didn't expect it to be good, but I had no idea how truly terrible it would turn out to be. There are a whole bunch of Jaws inspired cash ins out there for your perusal, the original Pirahna being the best, Up From The Depths being the absolute worst. What really gives this film it's claim to infamy is the astonoshingly bad comedy relief that pops up in the last half as all the goofy tourists head out to catch the killer fish. It's so bad that it actualy makes the work of Jim Carey and Adam Sandler look inspired. No mean feat to be sure. The great poster for the film gives you the impression that the creature will be an aquatic dinosaur or sea serpent. No such luck as all it is, is some kind of rare, deep sea fish brought to the upper surface via seismic activity. It's also not very impressive looking and the FX artist who created it regreted (years later in an interview in Fangoria) not having a good enough budget to craft a decent looking creature. One funny thing about the monster fish is that it shares a power that many other type of similar B movie monsters have, namely the ability to sneak right up on people despite being about 20 to 30 feet long. How do they do that? A week before NBC unveiled their terrible adaptation of Peter Benchly's "Beast," a local channel had the bright idea to air Up From The Depths. It's a tough call as to which is worse but I feel that "Up" gets the nod. File it under, "How not to do a Jaws cash in."

During my ongoing quest to track down literally every "Jaws" rip-off ever made (strange hobby, I know…), I already encountered numerous of truly horrible – yet highly entertaining – junk movies, but "Up from the Depths" most certainly makes it into my all-time top five of awfulness! This is your basic and by-the-numbers "Jaws" plot: tourists and divers are mysteriously disappearing nearby a Hawaiian holiday resort, but obviously the neurotic manager continuously keeps claiming everything's fine in order not to upset his guests, especially when a famous fashion model arrives at the resort for a photo shoot. Then, of course, the inevitable beach attack follows… The funniest part about "Up from the Depths" is that you'll spend most of the time figuring out exactly what type of watery critter we're dealing with here. It's not a Great White or any other species of shark. Nor it's a crocodile or any other kind of commonly known sea predator. It's a fish! It's some kind of over-sized and prehistoric turbot with two fins sticking out the water and an insatiable appetite for dumb and stereotypical B-movie characters. Following good old monster-movie traditions, we're gradually being shown a bigger piece of the creature with every attack, yet by the time it fully emerges from the water, you wish they would have left it all up to the imagination .The special effects look so unimaginably cheesy and pitiable! "Up from the Depths" starts off slow and a tad boring, but admittedly shifts into higher gear halfway through the film, when the manager puts a price on the animal's head and thus literally generates a cowboy round-up; There's never any sign of suspense to detect, even in spite of director Charles B. Griffith's attempts to insert a wannabe ominous musical score and hectic POV-underwater photography. Don't expect any gory smörgåsbord massacres or bloody make-up effects, neither. This is basically a comical viewing experience, filled with both intentionally and unintentionally hilarious situations. The screenplay itself contains several running gags (a constantly bickering elderly couple, the bimbo photo model not realizing she's on Hawaii, etc...) and the sheer incompetence of the ensemble production team induces even more chuckles. "Up from the Depths" truly deserves its embarrassing 1.8 out of 10 rating, but still I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to tolerable fans of cheesy bad cinema.

Alright here I go. I saw the video box to this when I was VERY young in the mid eighties and wanted to rent it because it looked good and scary. But my parents would not let me! So fast forward a few years and I see the film Piranha. I see the finale and a shot from this finale is on the back of the vestron box of "Up from the Depths." So I begin to think I was making it up. That I had not seen a movie of this title. That Piranha WAS the movie I saw. Then I find out about a website called imdb.com and I look this title up. Sure enough I was NOT dreaming! I was actually so excited and went to the only Blockbuster in the state that carried this title about an hour away from my home just to finish the life's pursuit! I got home with intense anxiety, plopped the VHS in the VCR and... what? what is this? this isn't scary? why... how... And that is all that was there. This film is a pretty cheap knock off of Jaws and does not know it is! It deals with two stupid people who for some god unknown reason are spending time at the beach WHEN, they run into some(not so)dangerous trouble when a shark that is like, two feet long comes a shore and starts nib nib nibbling at the vacationers. I was so appauled that I, being a hard core film lover, had been thinking about this film all that time and wondering if I would ever see it! No wonder I could never find it one ago. In fact, in an article I read, the production was so in trouble that it began in Malta, which doubled for the Phillipines, which tripled for Hawaii. The list goes on and on. The scenes are so laughable. Like a scene which a supermodel gives gum to a fish, and she later is doing a nudie shoot on a boat that is attacked by the ugly duckling of a fish. The fish looks cardboard and makes a sound that could frighten a muse! What were the cast and crew thinking! However I would watch it if push came to shove because I am a hardcore Corman fan. But in all honesty and sincerety, stay away unless you really want to waste your money or it is on tv and you feel you just HAVE to see it. 1/10

This is a nearly completely redone version of Jaws, of course. The monster gets a 1, pretty lame big rubber fish. The script a 2, too much really bad humor that's tried to be passed off as wit. The supporting cast a 3, some are okay some are not, and the boy and girl leads get a 4, they really are not bad and handled their parts in such a grade C film with respect. The nice scenery of a remote Hawaiian island gets a 5 and the all around neat 1970s mishmash decor gets a 7, and not higher because it wasn't planned but was just there to be used. I mean just look at that hotel, with a 1960s angular pointy diner roof and greco-roman columns holding it up!