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Posted on July 8, 2015

Horror Rewatch: Deep Blue Sea (1999)

Gwen

Deep Blue Sea appreciates nature’s preeminent design-the shark.

R | 105min | 1999 | (USA) | Renny Harlin

Let’s get the meat and potatos out of the way: Imdb aptly describes the film as: “Searching for a cure to Alzheimer’s disease a group of scientists on an isolated research facility become the bait as a trio of intelligent sharks fight back.” Deep Blue Sea certainly packs a punch with its special effects, animatronics, and plot twists. Without giving away spoilers, I have to concede that this film certainly has my personal favorite death scene of all time to date. Similar to so many of the pets on my top ten horrific pets list these sharks only become killers once man meddles in matters of nature, or more specifically with God’s perfect design.

Deep Blue Sea suggests that sharks are quite infallible by design. During a discussion between scientists they mention that sharks are the oldest and most efficient creatures on the planet they never get cancer, go blind, or show loss of brain functioning. In the mind of lead scientist Dr. McCallister (Saffron Burrows) this is what makes them the perfect candidate for her intrusive and unethical scientific practices. Read more

Posted on July 7, 2015

Up from the Depths (1979) Film Review

Elizabeth Erwin

Directed by Charles B. Griffith, Up from the Depths is a gloriously hokey film that is less monster horror and more spoof horror, although that may not have been its intention. Capitalizing on the shark mania created by Jaws, the film echoes its film predecessor in delightfully absurd ways. The plot is a relatively straightforward one. After a significant underwater earthquake, a prehistoric shark rises up and immediately begins feasting upon the vacationers of a high-end resort. That the resort in question looks more like a set reject from Fantasy Island and less an affluent playground is just one of the many ways this film continually reminds us not to take it too seriously.

Posted on July 6, 2015

Shark Horror, Part 1: Naturalistic Horror

Dawn Keetley

Shark Week in July seems to have become a staple of our seasonal calendar, so now’s a good time to think about sharks in horror film. I’d like to propose two broad categories of shark horror. One falls under the rubric of what critic Michael Fuchs has aptly called “naturalistic horror,”[i] which puts us firmly in the terrain of the shark, in a world relatively indifferent to humans (except as food), in which the good guys don’t necessarily come out on top (or even alive), and death is random. (Check back later this week for the second kind!)

Posted on July 5, 2015

Top Ten Reasons Why Sharks Make the Perfect Movie Monster

Gwen

Since this week marks Discovery Channel’s 27^th annual celebration of Shark Week, I thought it was a great time to discuss why sharks probably make some of the best movie monsters.

10. Sharks barely need sleep. Even Freddy Krueger needs more rest than these guys. It was once thought that sharks had to constantly move in order to keep the water flowing over their gills. In fact, they tend to have active and restful periods and some species such as the nurse shark have spiracles which help move the water over the gills during restful periods.

Posted on July 5, 2015

Jaws, The Slasher, and the Encounter at the Heart of Horror

Dawn Keetley

Directed by Steven Spielberg, Jaws was released on June 20, 1975, and the story of its immense critical and popular success doesn’t need to be rehearsed here. Suffice it to say that not since Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 film Psycho had a film so terrified audiences.

On every count, Jaws is a masterpiece. This summer marks its 40^th anniversary—and it’s still as powerful as it was in 1975. Not least, for much of the film only minimally visible and identified by the unforgettably ominous theme music composed by John Williams, the shark itself is still utterly chilling. And the acting is brilliant—notably Roy Scheider as Chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as oceanographer Matt Hopper, and the truly incomparable Robert Shaw as Quint. Read more