In 1989, There Were 4 Different Underwater Monster Movies, Including James Cameron’s Masterpiece

Hollywood movie studios were all over the underwater monster movie in 1989. These movies all had similar plots — for one reason or another, a crew goes underwater in service of a mission, encounters a monster that causes the crew to suffer casualties before the crew finds a way to overpower it — and most weren’t kindly received by critics. The problem with underwater monster movies — even decades ago in 1989 — is that for many audiences, once they’ve seen one underwater monster movie, they’ve seen them all. 

Despite that, DeepStar Six, Leviathan, The Lords of the Deep, and The Abyss were all released in the United States in 1989. In South Africa, a similar film called The Evil Below was also released, and a year later, in 1990, Spanish director Juan Piquer Simón released The Rift but renamed it Endless Descent, in hopes of attracting American audiences and jumping on the trend of underwater films. 

DeepStar Six, Leviathan, the Lords of the Deep, and The Abyss all have similar plots, but director James Cameron — known then for his films The Terminator and Aliens — was able to create a masterpiece with The Abyss. Cameron managed to strike gold at a time when many failed. Even with a messy third act, The Abyss ranked #2 at the box office and won Best Visual Effects at the 62nd Academy Awards. 

What The Abyss Brought to the Table

Even before the Special Edition was released in 1993 and improved upon the film, The Abyss managed to present something new. It presented compassion and curiosity in a realm that dealt almost exclusively with hate and fear. Unlike its competition, the monster in The Abyss isn’t a reptile or an undefined blob of mass. It’s instead, in the words of female lead Dr. Lindsey Brigman (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen. This underwater monster is closer to the light show at a concert than the Creature from the Black Lagoon. It’s also able to change its form, and at one point, it even appears humanoid, albeit still resembling a watery material. 

Dr. Brigman, unlike her male counterparts in the film, is convinced that the creature doesn’t mean the crew any harm. Brigman is open to the unknown and welcoming towards it, part of a trend with female characters that would dominate Cameron’s films. It’s also hard not to watch the scenes between Brigman and the monster as a precursor to the water alien / human woman romance subgenre that dominated pop culture in the late 2010s with The Shape of Water. 

Notably, Dr. Brigman is able to feel so real in part to Cameron basing the character on producer Gale Ann Herd. Herd and Cameron were married prior to The Abyss, before divorcing after principal photography for the film. 

Where the Other Films Stumbled

The original trailer for The Abyss called the film “the most original adventure of the summer”. At first glance, the claim feels laughable — it was one of four movies about underwater monsters. Yet, Cameron managed to write his way into saying something distinct, in a way that the writers of the other three films couldn’t. For James Cameron, The Abyss was partly inspired by H.G. Wells’ short story by the same name. 

For director and producer of DeepStar Six, Sean S. Cunningham, the movie was created in order to be the first underwater monster movie released in 1989. Unlike The Abyss, the monster in DeepStar Six is more of the usual fare. At first, it’s an unseen entity existing to kill off members of the crew before turning out to be a crab-like sea monster that dies at the end. 

Leviathan adds slight intrigue by adding a Russian angle to its story — the shipwreck that the undersea miners go to explore is an old Soviet one — but it’s hardly enough. The film doesn’t feel original but rather an amalgamation of older horror films Alien and The Thing. To its credit, though, there’s slight subversion in the underwater monsters turning out not to be a new species but rather a Russian experiment with genetic modification — the insertion of fish DNA into humans — gone horribly wrong. 

Lords of the Deep feels not only like a retread of movies that came before it, but its 1989 original trailer also felt like a retread of DeepStar Six, with both narrations stating “they are invaders” when referring to the crew. Once again, aliens are attacking an underwater base. There are some unique elements, sure — biologist Dr. Claire McDowell experiences psychic visions, and the film’s ending has the aliens insist on wanting to help humanity not give in to greed and their worst impulses — along with special effects from Oscar winners Robert and Dennis Skotak. Despite being leagues apart in quality, the film also can’t help but be in competition with Cameron’s The Abyss, given the fact that Cameron and Herd were once assistants for Roger Corman. 

Leviathan, DeepStar Six, and Lords of the Deep may not be masterpieces, but are they worth a watch? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!