The Thing Below

This movie is one sorry mess and its hard to believe it was ever made. There had to be some kind of tax shelter deal that enabled the birth of this monstrosity, because I fail to see how any rational person would ever willingly invest money into a script like this.

The plot involves a government-owned oil rig conducting secretive drilling operations deep underground. Something goes wrong and the crew from a tugboat delivering supplies to the rig investigates. Of course, there are government agents involved and higher-level military officers trying to keep the oil rig experiments a secret from the outside world.

This could have been a decent horror/thriller but the filmmakers obviously didn't care. Some scenes were so blatantly stupid that one would have thought of them as parodies of horror film clichés, but no, they were actual attempts at generating suspense and drama. Usually scenes are included in movies to move the story forward and to develop the characters, but the makers of "Sea Ghost" decided it would better to include scenes that made absolutely no sense in the context of the movie. To top it all off, the CGI was pathetic, I'm sure an eight year old using a Mac could have developed better effects, and would have saved the producers some money to boot. At least the no-name actors tried, although some seemed to be playing it as a comedy and others as a serious horror.

I have seen better acting in sixth grade plays. And better sets. And better productions. You get the idea. Its the lamest movie I have ever watched. Fortunately I didn't pay for it at a rental, came across it on TV and only watched it because at first I thought it was Saturday Night Live or something making fun of the movies. The people who are part of this movie should be blacklisted and not allowed to be part of any movie ever again! I feel like calling my cable company and demanding a pro rata share of my monthly bill back for them putting such garbage on TV. If you see this movie on, unplug your TV! That being said, I think some "B" movies make fun of themselves or the genre. Or some, like Shawn of the Dead, are really funny. The problem with The Thing Below is more serious, everyone seems to think they are making a real movie of interest and entertainment. Sometimes I wonder what the old guys, like Alfred Hitchcock and Rod Serling (Twilight Zone), who are masters of suspense, would have done if they had the technology and special effects to add to their craft.

This movie and its twin Deep Evil (2004) (TV) are painful to watch.

I won't go into too much detail or reiterate what others have written. I did watch the whole thing but my excuse is that I was watching this in the background while on the computer.

I kept on having deja vu while this played and I just could not put my finger on it - cheesy CGI, less than enthusiastic acting, and some other details.

The overall idea, some of the effects, scenery, bio-hazard outfits, black eyeballs, and "lumpy" skin all looked too familiar - I looked up the cast and crew for this movie and Ah ha! I had seen Deep Evil (2004) recently. They share so much: plot, effects, and one of the writers. Who knows maybe some of the footage got mixed up on the cutting room floor? Don't bother with the movie. Watch paint dry. (Or watch both movies and compare, for fun!)

I had the misfortune to catch this movie on Cinemax in Asia, where it had been renamed "Sea Ghost" for reasons that are now obvious.

The film brought back memories - unfortunately not pleasant ones - of science fiction past: the shaky sets; the cinematic clichés; the blatant plot inconsistencies; and best of all, the very shaky special effects, which appear to have been produced on one of the production assistant's kid brother's home computer.

Yes, it sucks big time. Only watch it if it the last movie on earth, and it's a quiet night in oblivion.

PS Sometimes it hard to compose a 10 line comment for a movie this bad!

*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT*

"The Thing Below" is a completely unnecessary movie. I didn't need to see it and no one needed to spend two seconds making it. In fact, I would dare say that no one should have even thought about making it. I rented it expecting a cheap "Deep Rising" rip-off. It's a sad day when your movie watching hopes are dashed because they weren't low enough. I thought mine couldn't possibly get any lower. A "Deep Rising" rip-off was asking too much? Yes. Yes it was.

"The Thing Below" starts off with the usual B-movie scientists doing stupid things in an isolated setting. This time they're on an oil rig and let loose The Thing Below. A cargo ship arrives to check out the situation. Then the movie spins off into oblivion as the monster is not a beast with fangs, tentacles and other cool monster appendages but some sorry telepathic creature that can read your mind and exploit your fears, hopes, dreams etc. This leads to a scene where the monster turns into Glori-Anne Gilbert so it can do a strip tease for one of the crew members and another scene where there's an Old West style shootout (?!). I'm sure once the filmmakers saw the quality of their monster special effects, (terrible, awful, etc), they decided to take the telepathic creature route. It didn't really matter which monster they chose because there's no suspense, no thrills and pretty much nothing below. Well, nothing worth getting excited about that's for sure. Any way you look at it, this movie needs to be tossed away and forgotten.