Release Date : 30th January, 1998 (United States)
Running Length : 106 minutes
Certification : HK : IIB / US : R / AUS : MA
Genre : Horror / Science Fiction / Gore
Awards : None

Director : Stephen Sommers

Cast : Treat Williams, Famke Janssen, Anthony Heald, Kevin J. O'Connor, Wes Studi, Jason Flemyng

Producers: John Baldecchi, Laurence Mark

Screenplay: Stephen Sommers

Cinematography: Howard Atherton

Music: Jerry Goldsmith

Hollywood Pictures

You may wonder what the creature in DEEP RISING really is when you see the poster of this film for the first time, there is a gruesome monster standing right behind a man and going to take him in.

DEEP RISING is another monster movie like "Alien" or more recently, "The Relic". These kind of movies all have similar plots and the most important factor that classifies them as good or bad is whether the people are shocked by the monster or find the movie really cool and amazing. "Alien" is good but DEEP RISING is only an average one.

The movie opens with John J. Finnegan (Treat Williams) captain of  a mercenary boat for hire, running bad guys in and around South China Sea and carrying their cargo of torpedoes. His mechanic (Kevin J. O'Connor) and first-mate (Una Damon) are on the boat too. Their destination is a luxury liner resembling Titanic, with thousands of wealthy men eating and dancing on the ship.

But something gets there first.

By the time when they get on the sinking ctuising ship, almost all the passengers are dead except the only passenger, Trillian St. James (FamkeJanssen), the owner of the cruiser, Simon Canton (Anthony Heald) and the Captain (Derrick O'Connor). So, what'd happened? All passengers disappeared and they soon discover some gruesome evidence that the ship has been attacked by a terrible sea creature. The decks are pooled with blood and corpses are found everywhere.

The monster continues to attack the survivors relentlessly and snatch them one by one. The bad guys soon realize that they have to become good guys and fight against the monster together, otherwise, the chance to escape the ship alive is very slim. The rest of the film mainly focuses on how the monster preys on the survivors one by one and how they escape from the ship.

This film is definitely unsuitable for younger kids. There is an extremely horrible carnage scene with thousands of skeletons and blood filling up the deck. I have never seen this kind of shots on the screen. And there are many similar shots, as you have to realize that the squid-like monster kills you by drinking you to death and then excreting your skeletons left. But on the other hand, the monster is brought to life by  complicated special effects which is the best part of the movie.

All the actors did an average job in the movie. Kevin J. O'Connor makes some innocent but funny jokes even when the action gets very tense.

The music composed by Jerry Goldsmith is mechanical and actually I can only find a single theme throughout the movie.

Sometimes, it is really hard to believe what it is shown in the movie. The monster is like a creature that has a brain and it knows how to lead the survivors running to the deck so that they can have a look at the terrifying carnage scene. And the ending of the movie is unclear. May be it is a question mark that the director will answer in DEEP RISING 2!!!