1/14/24

Blood Capsule #177

LORDS OF THE DEEP (1989)

The best thing about this film is its VHS artwork.  If I wasn't low-key obsessed with the aquamarine slipcase (she's a beauty), I wouldn't have forked over ten bucks to own it.  And yet, I'm glad it's in my possession.  I dig this sub-subgenre.  What kind of micro-niche are we dealing with here?  Well, as I was saying before I was rudely interrupted, Lords of the Deep falls under the category of "undersea sci-fi/horror."  Movie studios must have been under the impression that ticket buyers simply craved briny, thalassic entertainment.  Either that, or they were staffed by would-be oceanographers because there were no less than six (!) of these brackish b-doodles made between 1989 and 1990.  My favorite of the lot?  DeepStar Six, which benefits from Miguel Ferrer and a cool monster.

I'll have you know that Ferrer doesn't star in Lords, and the monster?  It's a benevolent manta ray.  Doesn't exactly live up to the title, does it?  I suppose that the effects are shipshape (pun intended), but we don't see them enough for it to matter.  The script could have been ghostwritten by AI.  There is a submerged laboratory, a mining operation, and several submersibles that...ugh, even the synopsis is bland.  I wanted to like this flick.  Priscilla Barnes overexerts herself as a goo scientist.  Roger Corman appears in extended cameo capacity, and I'm sure that he considered Lords of the Deep a success.  I'll let you in on a little secret; I disagree.  Recommended to fans of smallbox VHS, reruns of Three's Company (post-Chrissy Snow), and saltwater.


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