LAST YEAR AT 2:17 AM

ANNA FARIS

TRIPPED

WHILE TEXTING

AND

ACCIDENTALLY AGREED TO DO ANOTHER

I’ve no expectation that this will be good, but that got an amused snort out of me.

I mean, I know the takeaway Ehrlich wants me to have is “don’t see this movie, it’s not worth it”, but I have to admit some perverse curiosity.

An incomplete list of ocean horror.

Underwater (2020): Kristen Stewart and a small cast of rapidly dwindling fish food discover that their deep see mining operation may have delved too deeply and greedily into the earth, and some things buried should be left to sleep. Relatively big budget creature feature which suffers from sitting on the shelf and being tinkered with for a couple of years before releasing in COVID. Some odd editing decisions and not a lot of character work, but it looks good, it SOUNDS great (more important than you might think for ocean horror), at least two memorable deaths which push the PG-13 rating to the limit, and a whopper of a last act reveal. Also, 94 minutes long, which is a strong endorsement, imo.

Leviathan (1989): Peter Weller, of Robocop, stars in this soggy mish mash of Alien and The Thing. A team of deep sea miners stumble upon the wreck of a Soviet ship and wind up salvaging more than they bargained for out of the Captain’s safe. Creature effects by Stan Winston, but lower your expectations for the finale, as it’s definitely not his best work. Still, fun in a goopy, cheesy way, buoyed by a winning cast.

The Abyss (1989): Pretty much the same set up as Leviathan, but executed by James Cameron instead of George P. Cosmatos. I love Cobra as much as the next guy, but Cameron is obviously the superior director. Takes a turn towards navel gazing sentimentality towards the end, which could be a pro or a con depending on what youre looking to get out of the experience.

Deep Star Six (1989): I’ve not actually seen this one, but it completes the trifecta of 1989 ocean-based science-fiction horror movies, so it needed to be included.

Deep Rising (1998): Treat Williams is hired to ferry a team of mercenaries to a rendezvous point with a luxury ocean liner, where they intend on looting and scuttling the ship. Unfortunately for everyone, bobbit worms’ bigger, grosser cousins show up start gorging themselves. Directed by Stephen Sommers, right before launching into the Mummy the following year. Impressive (for 98) CGI, solid R-rating, and another winning cast (Treat Williams, Famke Janssen, Anthony Heald, Kevin J. O’Connor, Djimon Hounsou, and Jason Flemyng).

The Poseidon Adventure (1972): Breaking from my monster movie convention to recommend this, which is a disaster film with nothing supernatural about it. However, I think there are sections which are tense enough to qualify as horror-adjacent, and again, what a cast, man. If you can’t tell, I’ll put up with a lot of crap if I find the actors compelling in some way. Unlike Treat Williams though, I shouldn’t have to justify to you the enjoyment of watching Gene Hackman, Ernest Borgnine, Shelley Winters, Red Buttons, Roddy Macdowell, Leslie Nielsen, AND MORE navigate an ocean liner which has been capsized by a rogue wave. With the exception of Jaws and The Abyss (arguably), this is the best movie on this list. Light recommend for the 2006 remake, which is nowhere near as good imo, but does take advantage of the technology of the time to emphasize the disaster segments. And I’m a sucker for Kurt Russell.

Below (2002): WW2-set submarine ghost story starring a slew of character actors, and a very early role for Zach Galifianakis. I’ve seen this before, multiple times, but probably not in the past 20 years. It was a staple on the IFC channel right around the time my dad sprung for the expensive cable package. I remember it being an effective, if somewhat slight, spook-em-up story, bolstered by the unique setting. Written by Darren Aronofsky (Requiem for a Dream, The Whale, Black Swan, etc.) and directed by David Twohy (the Riddick movies, which is an endorsement from me, but may not be for others).

Jaws (1975): it’s THE shark movie. Nothing more to say, if you haven’t seen Jaws and you’re curious about ocean-based horror, this is where you have to start.

Beast of War (2025): in WW2 Australia, a troop of ANZACs are stranded when their carrier is sunk, and they’re left adrift among the wreckage. Then, the shark arrives. Gnarly effects, more competent writing and acting than this genre usually pulls off, and moody cinematography all elevate this out of the depths of “shark movie trash” and into “enjoyable B-movie” shallows.

The Meg 1 and 2: Jason Statham and a diverse cast of stars from major non-US film markets have to take down giant sharks and other prehistoric escapees from a primordial undersea trench. It’s not good, but they throw enough money at the effects to make the attack scenes fun. Check your brain at the door, it will be a detriment to your enjoyment.

Deep Blue Sea (1999): An Alzheimer’s researcher accidentally creates super smart sharks by enlarging their brains. The sharks use their newfound intelligence to pick off the crew of this animal testing facility one by one. Early Stellan Skarsgard role. Also features LL Cool J as the religious and borderline insane facility cook, and Thomas Jane as the shark wrangler protagonist. Aggressively stupid, but all the more fun because of it. Mister Cool J raps over the closing credits with an original song written for and referencing the movie, which is a bold and hilarious decision.

Blood Vessel (2019): Super light recommendation for this one, as it isn’t really in line with your request. The maritime setting is mostly incidental here, but it’s an underseen indie horror movie that is technically set in the middle of the ocean, so I’m throwing it in. A cast of inexplicably diverse WW2 allies are adrift when a seemingly abandoned German hospital ship approaches them. They board the ship and discover that something nefarious went down on board, related to a couple of strange crates in the hold which are of special interest to Nazi high command. Stars Alyssa Sutherland, who would go on to appear in Evil Dead Rise as the possessed mother character.

I’ll add to this if I think of others.

If there’s one thing Ben Affleck knows how to do, it’s negotiate with suits.

Agreed. It’s one of the only subreddits that I actively miss reading through, even if I rarely had the expertise or sources to participate.

No shade on you, but I don’t subscribe to your historical framework. I’m reminded of the old Carl Sagan joke: “to bake a pie, you must first invent the universe”. Yes, it’s true that events 4 billion years ago can be said to have an effect on matters today through an unbroken chain of causality, but that’s generally not a useful answer to the question being asked. For example, you could answer questions about the moon landing by explaining a hypothetical planet might have collided with the proto-Earth at the dawn of the solar system. However, the asker is probably going to be a little peeved at that response, necessary pre-requisite or not. That being said, I think you and I are on the same page about that framework’s use as a tool for general historical inquiry, so I’ll not belabor the point.

My core issue is that he preempts his own thesis by focusing on these geographical factors. Bear in mind, the question he is setting out to answer is ‘Why did European societies dominate the globe?’, not How they did it. To illustrate, I’m fine with his argument about Europe’s coal and iron reserves being easily accessible leading to a military competive advantage. However, demonstrating that a culture has the capacity to conquer does not, to me, answer why a society conquers.

To pick a single point out of a cloud of factors, I think a FAR more direct cause of colonialism was the economic theory of mercantilism which was all the rage in Europe in the 15th-17th centuries. In a nutshell, mercantilism said successful economies are based on reducing imports, maximizing exports, and hoarding precious metals. What do you do if you’re a European nation which has largely tapped out its local market capacities? You find new markets. Hmm, but your neighbors all enjoy a similar level of technology as you, and, frankly, their local markets largely have the same shit yours do. What’s this? A vast, undiscovered country to the west, full of novel goods and legends of golden cities? Well, buckle up, buttercups, we’re going on a little adventure! Say, Jeeves, who are all these people? They say they live here? Well…do they have a flag?

That explanation (“if I do this I’ll be rich”) is far more credible for the whys of colonialism than Diamond’s conclusions, even if I acknowledge that the factors he listed indirectly contributed to the end result.

I have to reiterate, though, just a schmuck in the internet, no expert claim is intended.

Well, those are two different arguments. No one will bat an eye at the argument that geography is a contributing cause to culture/history, but eyebrows start raising when you argue that geography is the “ultimate cause” of history. It’s the degree of determinism that sticks in my (and others’) craw.

It’s an update of old arguments which said things like, “the high temperature of the African continent explains why those people are barbaric savages; they’re too hot-blooded to create real civilizations”.

I’m dredging up academic book reviews from long ago out of my my memory banks, so take this with a healthy heap of salt, but the gripe about his work (specifically Guns, Germs, and Steel) is his evangelization of environmental determinism to support his thesis. Notably, I’ve not read his later book (Collapse) which I assume is the specific reference being made above, so I’ll reiterate, very healthy handful of salt.

In essence, Guns, Germs, and Steel sought to answer the question of why European societies tended to dominate other cultures (specifically American, Australasian, and African societies) and not the other way around. To his credit, he explicitly rejected any argument based on inherent racial superiority. However, the answers that he settles upon boil down to a deterministic view of history which rankles some people’s feathers. Essentially, he argues, it was inevitable that Western Europe would conquer the world because the geography of the continent enabled (or even encouraged) imperialism once certain technological thresholds had been met.

My personal, inexpert critique of Diamond’s arguments are that it feels like slapping a coat of late-90s “politically correct” paint on the same racist arguments which he purports to reject, i.e. “we cant claim white people dominated the globe because of racial superiority anymore, but what if we claimed white people’s environment was superior at generating societies with the capacity to dominate?”

This argument does a couple of things. Racists get to pat themselves on the back, inexplicably, for their ancestors utilizing the resources presented to them “better” than brown people, while white folks who feel guilty about the legacy of imperialism can rest assured that it isn’t their (or their ancestors’) fault, it’s the broadly east-west alignment of the European continent which is to blame!

To be clear, I don’t know enough about Diamond or his work as a whole to judge his personal character, and my reductive summation of his arguments should be considered for what they are: a dude on the internet remembering a couple of university lectures 15 years after the fact.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001), dir. by Steven Soderbergh. I noticed that one of the film podcasts I follow, Eye of the Duck, is doing a miniseries on the Ocean films, which inspired the rewatch. It’s just a good time at the movies, man, barring an unfortunate “Trump” jumpscare or two. The cast is charming as hell, the direction and editing are propulsive, and the twist has just enough foreshadowing to forestall complaints that the audience is being played as much as the mark. I love the way Soderbergh blocks the movie, as there’s often little bits and pieces thrown into the margins of the frame which foreshadow upcoming events, but the focus is on something or someone else. In a way, that stylistic decision is the whole heist in microcosm, and I think it’s neat that Soderbergh incorporates misdirection and attention manipulation into his visual language. Also, man, the color pallete of this movie is almost enough to make you forget that casinos are generally Eldritch nightmare locations full of sadness and cigarette smoke, rather than palaces of luxury. I’ve seen the sequels, but I don’t remember much about them. I hope Julia Roberts’ role gets beefed up, the script treats her like a trophy more than a character. 3.5/5.

Excuse me, do y’all have plus sizes? This coat, as you can see, is for a great big fat person.

It’s bots all the way down

Great interview! I was aware of many of the films mentioned (not all though; I’ve got homework to do), but hadn’t clocked the connective tissue between them. Glad to hear about someone who’s doing the work to continue telling original and marginal stories.

In OP’s defense, I checked out both movies’ Letterboxd ratings, and Blade 1 is rated at 3.5 out of 5, and Blade 2 is sitting at 3.3, so maybe it is just an echo chamber thing. That being said, I really believe this was not the case 10, 15 years ago.

Having sat with it for awhile now, I’m kind of coming around on the notion. I’d have to do a back to back viewing to confirm, but my current hypothesis is that Blade 1 is an excellent urban action-horror picture. It does everything you’d expect it to do pretty well. Blade 2, being a product of Guillermo’s interests, has this weird, quasi-Shakespearian family drama between Nomac, lady vampire, and the patriarch serving as the emotional spine of the picture. It’s fine, but I remember a lot more about their dynamics than I remember about Blade’s arc, which is maybe not what you want from a Blade movie. Plus, all the extra vampire lore and whatnot makes the picture feel less like urban action-horror and more like a fantasy film, which just so happens to have guns and the occasional unwitting human. Not bad, but it does feel like a dry run for ideas Guillermo would do better in other movies.

At this point, it seems to me the most consistent thing about the Resident Evil franchise is it’s willingness to reinvent itself. Even before the seismic shift from traditional survival-horror to B-movie action that RE4 represented, the 2002 REmake was intentionally mucking around with the original game’s flow and mechanics in the name of keeping things fresh, even for returning players.

You say there are no recognizable elements from any of the games, but I see a creepy, deserted house in the middle of nowhere which someone enters after encountering troubles outside. At some point, the intruder discovers the house is not as deserted as it appears, as there is a monster or monsters within. That, to me, is all that’s strictly necessary. Admittedly, I wouldn’t mind seeing a few iconic RE monsters make an appearance (especially ones which have not been featured in other adaptations, like hunters, or a drain deimos), but if they provide me something new, I’ll be even happier.

I was gonna say, how is this entire thread skipping over the take that Blade 2 is a step down from the first? It’s not the craziest movie take I’ve read on here, but it definitely flies in the face of what I understood to be popular opinion.

Oh, as a connoisseur of garbage, The Cannon Group is near and dear to my heart haha. Of course, being more immersed in the Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, JCVD-type Cannon output, it was refreshing to see their logo on a real “film”.

I long for a successor to their throne, even if I have to concede that their model barely functioned while they existed, let alone its viability in today’s environment lol. Ebert hit the nail on the head in 87: “no other production organization in the world today—certainly not any of the seven Hollywood majors—has taken more chances with serious, marginal films than Cannon.”

Watched that for the first time over the winter. It was enjoyable enough, but I think some of the themes went over my head, and I have a hard time reconciling Voight and Roberts’ Oscar noms with their performances. Not bad per se, but hard to imagine either were among the best of 1985.

I’m guessing that it probably hit different at the time, if my assumptions about the film’s Cold War allegories are correct.

The Lair of the White Worm (1988) dir. Ken Russell. Starring Amanda Donohoe, Hugh Grant, and Peter Capaldi. A very loose adaptation of the 1911 Bram Stoker novel of the same name, which can be reductively summarized as “What if Dracula, but snakes?”.

This was a total unknown for me. Purchased the movie out of a bargain bin at Walmart based on the cover art alone. Did no research on it beyond learning it was a Stoker adaptation, and that it was a surreal horror-comedy with some psychosexual elements. Considering how much I enjoyed Coppola’s adaptation of Stoker’s more famous novel when I finally got around to watching it, that was enough to get me in the door.

In fact, I had such a good time discovering what this movie was, I’m hesitant to talk about all of the things I loved about it. So, I’ll leave it at this: if you like Coppola’s Dracula and you like Rocky Horror Picture Show, there’s a better than good chance you’ll like this. I absolutely loved it. 4.5/5

Underwater (2020) with Kristen Stewart. What can I say? I’m a product of my triply landlocked environment, and I find the ocean in general to be primally terrifying, let alone whatever antidiluvian secrets may be mired in the sea floor. Like The Descent (2005), I found myself relaxing as the scares became more about what was stalking the characters than the hostility of the environment, but it’s an enjoyable enough creature feature in the back half. Also, while I was initially unsure of the practically en medias res opening and the occasionally jarring edits which scream of scenes deleted (apparently this movie languished on the shelf for three years before getting unceremoniously dumped in January), it’s nice to see a big budget studio picture with a 90 minute runtime. There’s kind of a twist towards the end which I can imagine will be divisive, but I was on board with it, and I don’t want to spoil it if anyone is unaware. One thing I will spoil, in the name of selling the movie, is that there are two really gnarly deaths in this (which surprised me given the PG-13 rating), and one of them belongs to TJ Miller. 3.5/5

Unfortunately, I bet it’ll clear a billion.