Filmic Friday 25: Lords of the Deep (Gauntlet)

I'm terrified of shipwrecks and underwater scenes in nature-based shows or in video games (when I played D&D Online, I hated the shipwreck in the early game). I tell you this because it doesn't jive with my feelings on two different movies: Leviathan, and Lords of the Deep.

Leviathan is a pretty good movie, and I love it to death if only for the practical effects. Take that movie and its tense, messed up combining of Alien and The Abyss with The Thing, and drop it on its head down ten flights of stairs, combine it with every rock-stupid episode of Star Trek: Enterprise, and you've got Lords of the Deep. It really makes you pity Jonah & the bots on MST3K...

This looks... so much better than the movie.

So, for those of you who don't watch MST3K a lot, the latest season is six episodes long and called "The Gauntlet" because it's designed to be binged. That's pretty cool, right? Well... it depends on your tolerance for awful movies, because they've got an Asylum movie (Atlantic Rim) and Mac & Me.

Movies in the hole indeed!

Regardless, we watched Lords of the Deep, and boy was it... special.

First off, this has some decent little miniatures that are fairly incompetently shot. They look like super-detailed toys. Or like someone's trying to do a tabletop version of Subnautica. The acting is wretched, the story is rock stupid, and the alien designs are... woof.

Supposedly, people are terrified of these things...

There's very little blood, and 99% of the deaths caused are caused by one dude in particular via asphyxiation. I'm not spoiling anything. The movie straight up tells you through the least subtle subtext on earth that the captain dude is super evil.

Basic story: A bunch of people are about to go back up to the surface but their replacements don't show up. Also, there's a hallucinogenic ooze that the blond science lady is studying. The captain is acting weird. Suddenly there are aliens that look like derpy manta rays, and people start croaking.

Turns out the captain is killing people for reasons I guess and the aliens are good guys.

Good guys with seriously questionable architecture.
This stuff makes Aughra's weird home look positively contemporary...

Anywho, basically, nothing happens, the movie is dumb, and then it's over. It feels like a college project that got too much money, to be honest with you.

And it's hilarious.

The MST crew are at the top of their game here, and their riffs take a genuinely stupid movie and make it transcendent. It goes from funny to sublime, and I can barely believe that A) this movie was made and B) that Jonah & the rest could make it so watchable!

I have plans to run The Gauntlet myself, soon, so I'll try to keep you guys informed on that when or if I do so!

I think I've said all I can say on Lords of the Deep besides this - I want a Lord of the Deep plushy with light-up eyes. They're freaking adorable.

It's such a cute self-replicating oxygen farm!!!

That's all from me, guys!

Go Enjoy Something!
FC