I watched Deep Rising last night. I've seen it before but seeing as I'm a fan of sea monsters and always have been I thought I'd give it another whirl.
Deep Rising - which sounds like a baking term - is basically a combo of Under Siege and The Abyss. Its leading man is Treat Williams, a reliable B-lister, who I remember mostly from Hair, Flashpoint and Mulholland Falls. Amazingly he had an uncredited role in The Empire Strikes Back too.
The other actors include Anthony Heald who played Dr. Chilton in Silence of the Lambs, Famke Janssen who we know better as Jean Grey [she was also a Bond Girl but I didn't know that] and Kevin J. O'Connor, the gratingly whining Beni in the Mummy [his discordant whining voice being similar to that of Bobcat Goldthwait, the little guy who get's fired at the start of Scrooged].
I enjoyed Deep Rising second time round - a second wind you might say - and its appeal seems to have grown over the years generally. I imagine part of this is the involvement of Star Wars imagineers ILM and Rob Bottin the effects guru. The special FX in the film are top notch and I really like the slithering ravenous beastie as it plunges along the corridors of the stricken cruise-liner.
I understand that Harrison Ford was tipped to play the lead, which would obviously have given it blockbuster chops, but he turned it down.
Its original working title, Tentacle, isn't too bad. There was a schlocker called Tentacles in 1977, which is probably somewhere on the net to see.
The monster in the film is called Octalus, although I never heard the name used. It's a big fella that's for sure. I couldn't find any toy or kit versions of it, which is a shame.
Do you like Deep Rising? Can you recommend any other sea monster movies?
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