By the late 80s, ‘Alien Knockoffs’ had been a video store staple for almost a decade, hell, it’s practically its own sub-genre. Thanks to Roger Corman and other low-budget auteurs, the Horror section was replete with titles like Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World, Inseminoid, The Terror Within, Creature… But with rumours of a new James Cameron underwater epic circulating Hollywood, execs rushed their own cluster of films about small crews of specialists against mysterious deep-sea threats. By 1989, the ‘underwater Alien’ trend had us swimming in sea monsters for a year.
The fact that you can ask a question like – “What’s your favourite underwater monster movie from 1989?” – is pretty indicative of how big a splash this was.
My answer is usually DeepStar Six.
Cunningham’s contribution was arguably the scrappiest of the bunch, operating firmly within B-movie constraints. Deepstar Six didn’t have Cameron’s prestige, nor the creature design budget afforded to Leviathan. Instead, it doubled down on procedural tension and drippy low-fi claustrophobia.
Of course, box office realities were harsh. Both DeepStar Six and Leviathan quickly found themselves deep in the shadows of The Abyss’ record-breaking budget hype machine. But there’s something about DS6’s no-nonsense approach – the tinny blue-collar aesthetic, the squibby practical effects, the nuclear paranoia that captures the era’s horror sensibilities perfectly. It’s neither a lost classic nor particularly influential in its own right, but it remains a neat artefact of a year when Hollywood took a deep dive. -Pop
Deepstar Six surfaced on Home Video this week in 1989, after a lukewarm January 13th theatrical swim.