George P. Cosmatos
[5] Why does Pays only
appear in films with slimy creatures? The Kindred had the a slimy genetic experiment, this has a slimy undersea monster and Max
Headroom had, er, Max Headroom. The next film in the Jacques
Cousteau season (we've still got Roger Corman's Lords of the Deep to come) steals a lot from Alien, a fair bit from The Thing and
a tad from Jaws, adds Weller and comes up with a workmanlike
movie that is the best of the submarine bunch I've seen, though
that's not saying much. Workers in an undersea mine discover
"Leviathan", a sunken Russian ship that isn't supposed to be there.
The reason it's not marked is it's holding an especially nasty
creature which wiped out the crew before it was scuttled - before
you can say "Nostromo", it's chewing through the workforce, mutating
them as it goes. Out with the weaponry - circular saws, chainsaws
and flamethrowers, all of which do no good. Their employer writes
them off as a tax loss (icky things at the AGM would be
embarrassing), the escape capsules are blown by the doctor to save
the rest of humanity from the creature, and it's exciting climax
time. Totally predictable (5-4-3-2-1-SHOCK!), but I find it
impossible to actively dislike - the acting is decent, the dialogue
is plausible (one up on The Abyss there!) and Amanda Pays gets
damp.
