In 1989, something rather strange happened. There were not one, not two, not three, but FOUR (at least!) movies all with an extremely similar premise: Humanity is operating underwater in some fashion when they come across something unexpected and have to fight for their lives.
I accidentally came across the phenomena when I was going through my movie collection looking for something silly to watch and realised that I had The Abyss (Dir: James Cameron, 1989), Leviathan (Dir: George P. Cosmatos, 1989), Lords of the Deep (Dir: Mary Ann Fisher, 1989) and DeepStar Six (Dir: Sean S. Cunningham, 1989) — what on earth happened in 1989?!
I initially thought that it must have been the buzz surrounding James Cameron’s The Abyss. Cameron was hot property at the time having directed 1984’s Terminator and 1986’s Aliens so anything he was associated was bound to be box office gold (although not so much with The Abyss but that’s a story best left for the review).
Cameron had the idea for an underwater adventure when he was 17 after seeing a lecture about deep sea diving, but it wasn’t until 1987 that the idea was put into a script ready for production.
Put a pin in that year — it’ll come up again in a moment.
Confinement & Clashes
Why was the concept of films being set underwater so appealing?
Because there is nowhere for anyone to go.
They are surrounded by water — an element that we come into contact with every day and is required to keep us alive but in sufficient quantities can be deadly. It’s also fear of the unknown — only 20% of the ocean floor has been explored and not knowing what’s beneath us is a scary prospect.
Then you have the fact you need to be in a controlled environment just to survive a few metres under water for any length of time — another factor that adds to the fear and stress of a situation.
Films like Alien (Dir: Sir Ridley Scott, 1979) — and to a certain extent 2001: A Space Odyssey (Dir: Stanley Kubrick, 1968) — used confinement to masterful effect.
Our characters are trapped in a vessel with only a few layers of metal separating them from breathable air and certain death.
They face off against each other and an opposing force an alien in the case of Alien and an insane computer in the case of 2001.
And the same premise is true of our underwater films.
The characters need to stay in their confined space in order to survive, but its this same confinement that locks them in to the conflict with each other and whatever foe they are facing.
The Curious Case of 1987
So we have Cameron finalising his script for The Abyss in 1987, but this wasn’t the only piece of underwater fiction produced in this year, 1987 also saw the release of the novel Sphere by Michael Crichton. Crichton had been writing Sphere since 1967 but never quite knew how to finish the story and finally released the novel 20 years later.
You might be aware of the film Sphere (Dir: Barry Levinson, 1998) but that wasn’t released until 11 years after the novel was published, it’s a shame they didn’t capitalise on the 1989 underwater boom as perhaps the film might have been better received when up against others of a similar genre.
Unlike the later film, the novel Sphere was well received and along with the buzz surrounding Cameron’s upcoming production of The Abyss other studios started to realise that they could be on to a winning idea that would do well at the box office.
And due to a perfect storm of Cameron and Crichton, we have multiple films all released within a very short window, all with extremely similar plot lines.
This wasn’t a knew phenomenon, you just need to look at the “mockbuster” films inspired by Alien (most notably the Italian produced Alien 2: Sulla Terra) or Jaws (Orca: Killer Whale and The Last Shark among others) who took a well known story and changed it just enough to get away with copyright and hopefully confuse people at the video rental store so they’d grab the wrong film as they came out at similar times.
And it’s still happening today, most famously with The Asylum who have produced such mockbuster classics as H. G. Wells’ War of the Worlds released the same year as Spielberg’s War Of The Worlds, 2006’s The Da Vinci Treasure (The Davici Code with Tom Hanks), Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes (2009’s Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr.), American Warships (Battleship from 2010 with Rihanna), San Andreas Quake (2015’s San Andreas with Dwayne Johnson) — I could go on but I’m sure you get the picture!
But what about out 1989 films? How similar are they to the Abyss? Do they stand on their own or do they fall in to the mockbuster category? And, more importantly, are they any good?
Let’s find out!
Underwater Creature Feature Reviews
The films on this list are from the 1989/90 group all released around the same time of The Abyss but to round it out I’ve added in some classic Sci-Fi creature features and some more modern films that inspired and have taken inspiration from the 1989 films — and yes, some of them may take place on the water but they’re all set in claustrophobic spaces and feature creatures of some kind!
Have I missed anything from the list? Drop me a comment and let me know!
This list will be updated when a new review is added (note that reviews may not be completed in order).
- Leviathan (1989)
- Lords Of The Deep (1989)
- No Way Up (2024)
- DeepStar Six (1989)
- The Rift (AKA Endless Descent) (1990)
- Sphere (1998)
- Oceanus: Act One (Short) (2015)
- Underwater (2020)
- Underwater City (1962)
- 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (TV Movie) (1997)
- Deep Rising (1998)
- It Came From Beneath The Sea (1955)
- Deep Blue Sea (1999)
- Sea Fever (2019)
- Virus (1999)
And yes, I’ve left off Jaws, The Meg, and The Deep. While they feature terror in the water, they lack that specific, soul-crushing claustrophobia of a base or sub where the air is thinning and there’s nowhere to run. But if you’d like to see a ‘Surface Terror’ follow-up, let me know in the comments!
