“This better not be 20,000-Leagues-Under-The-Sea-shit, man,” says T.J. Miller’s aquatic researcher Paul as he slowly begins to realise there are sea monsters on the loose. If he’d been paying attention to William Eubank’s film from the get-go, poor Paul would have cottoned on much earlier. From the wide spacing in the title design to lights flickering on a seemingly deserted vessel to heroes fighting to stay alive in skimpy underwear, Underwater has Alien, and practically any other creature feature you can think of, coursing through its veins. This isn’t necessarily a problem. A cheap, thrilling B movie — in the vein of Pitch Black, Slither or Ready Or Not — is a welcome sight amongst awards-season seriousness. But Eubank’s film can’t find its own vibe or sense of fun to lift it off the seabed.
For its first half at least, Underwater is a disaster movie. As the tremor from an earthquake (or so it seems) destroys a sub-aqua research facility seven miles beneath the surface, Norah Price (Stewart — her crew-cut peroxide hair and outsized glasses are a mood) runs for her life, chased by a ragged handheld camera, effective and disorientating, locking a door behind her, condemning colleagues to their death but saving many more. She soon meets up with Vincent Cassel’s Captain Lucien, who refuses to leave his ship, nice-guy systems manager Rodrigo (Mamoudou Athie), wise guy Paul (Miller), research assistant Emily (Jessica Henwick), who bristles at being called an intern, and operations manager Liam (John Gallagher Jr), whose discerning trait is a beard. Eubank’s M.O. is immersive (or maybe submersive), throwing us in at the deep end with zilch knowledge about the people in peril. There’s a lot in the way of exposition — a reactor is melting down with only 30 minutes to go, a diving suit is running low on oxygen — but little in the way of sharply defined characters or interesting dynamics to spark human interest.
When Lucien decides the survivors should make their way to the safety of an abandoned rig, Underwater falls back on tension-building staples — lots of listening to ominous sounds in empty corridors, scary lost transmissions from surrounding drill sites — until the horror swims up. The first kill is effective but the rest don’t hit the mark — jump moments fall flat, while the pitch blackness of underwater, potentially atmospheric and scary, is just murky and confusing. When the creatures finally turn up, they seem to be designed by ctrl+alt+genericmonster.
Eubank, a cinematographer-turned-director, conjures up helmet cameras, over-used slow motion, the odd telling moment — our heroes wade through the junk food (Cheetos, Moon Pies) of the dead — and perhaps the slowest suit-up montage in action-movie history. The cast have little to work with — at least two of them are dealing with death in their pasts — and for all Stewart’s skill and strength, Norah isn’t the easiest character to root for. To its credit, the film doesn’t exactly adhere to the Final Girl trope, but by then it’s too little, too late.