Deep Blue Sea, a big dumb movie about big smart sharks, is still an entertaining action horror 25 years after it first swam onto our screens.
Director Renny Harlin has had a wild career in action and in horror. There are highs (The Long Kiss Goodnight, Cliffhanger) and lows (Cuthroat Island, Exorcist: The Beginning). Deep Blue Sea didn’t exactly end up being lauded as a cheesy horror-laced gem like its fellow 1999 blockbuster The Mummy, but in the realm of shark movies? It’s still got teeth.
It sees researchers at an underwater facility trying to find the cure for Alzheimer’s disease by studying the regenerative qualities of sharks’ brains. Unfortunately, it’s crunch time for the project financially, and the head honcho, Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson), is coming to see how close they are to a breakthrough.
It turns out they’re very close. However, in typical movie scientists’ thinking, the head researchers (played by Stellan Skarsgard and Saffron Burrows) dope the test sharks to achieve the result. Consequently, the Mako sharks are not only bigger and faster but smarter, too. So when a violent storm and a gnarly accident occur, the smart sharks take the chance to get out and chomp on any poor souls unlucky enough to be in the way. Therefore, the choices for the crew are simple. Get to the surface, drown, or get eaten.
The Shark Movie Problem
Make no mistake. Much like exorcism movies, Shark movies have been chasing an unattainable high for some time. Genre standouts that transcend said genre, such as Jaws and The Exorcist, make it extremely difficult to follow. I have genuinely lost count of how many times I’ve had hopes for a shark movie and been bitterly disappointed. And it’s been almost 50 years since Jaws and its mechanical shark set the benchmark. There have been a lot of frankly awful spins on the template in that time.
So, admittedly, the bar is pretty low for shark movies to clear beyond Jaws. There’s more to it than just because Jaws exists (the change in how sharks are perceived especially). But misunderstanding what made the idea of colossal monsters of the deep lurking beneath your feet in the ocean so damn terrifying is a big part of it.
While Deep Blue Sea is undoubtedly quite goofy at times and clearly uninterested in abiding by actual shark behavior (some of which is admittedly explained away by their enhanced abilities), it doesn’t forget the golden rule. Feed on the fear of the deep and the things in it.
The scenes underwater where the human crew are at the mercy of the killer beasts have tension to them. Especially those in open water where Thomas Jane’s grizzled shark wrangler Carter Blake plays a game of chicken. On a personal level, there’s a moment that filled me with dread that wasn’t inherently scary itself. Carter swims through a mesh tunnel in the facility’s caged-off section of the sea. When he arrives at its exit, the shot shows just how insignificant that tunnel feels in comparison to the cavernous blue murk surrounding it. Deep Blue Sea may be a largely daft chomper romp, but it has its moments to make thasalaphobia sufferers uncomfortable. Credit has to be given for the often superb use of space.
Disaster in the Deep Blue Sea
It also mixes in a little bit of the classic disaster movie format. After some shark shenanigans, the underwater facility begins to flood and crumble. The crew traverses all manner of perilous situations, trying to get to the surface whilst the sharks gain more ground (well, water). It may not have been enough on its own to make a competent disaster flick, but it adds something to the monster movie format that rules the movie’s structure. Also, it helps that the facility itself is a great setting.
Perhaps most importantly, Deep Blue Sea moves along with the same single-minded focus of a shark. It gets the guff out of the way quickly. From there, it’s a straight shoot of sharks vs. humans vs. crumbling undersea facility for over an hour. Pure popcorn delight.
I do not want to sound old, but the kind of film Deep Blue Sea is increasingly difficult to find in modern-day cinema. Sure, there are plenty of genuinely low-rent homages to the action/horror hybrid. The sequels are underwhelming proof of that. On this scale, there’s simply nothing quite like it. It may not have The Mummy‘s swagger, but it’s just as gloriously entertaining in its own way.