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Review: ‘UNDERWATER’ Is a Surprisingly Effective Terror of The Deep

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Aqua Horror as a sub-genre has always held a special place for me. Perhaps it’s because I grew up near the ocean or I consumed a slew of 1989 deep sea movies when I was younger. Or perhaps it’s because the ocean and its briny depths still fascinate and horrify me to this day. Regardless, when a big budgeted journey into the unknown comes along like William Eubank’s Underwater, I am thoroughly intrigued and happy to say it delivers what it promises!

Image via IMDB

Underwater follows the crew of a deep-sea mining rig and station 7 miles down along the Mariana Trench, one of the deepest known locations on the planet. Norah Price (Kristen Stewart) is a technician just going through her daily routine when the worst-case scenario happens, leaving her and a few other survivors left in their now critically damaged station. Now, they must make a perilous journey through the collapsing machinery of the base, through the barren ocean floor, and to the now derelict rig. However, along with the dangers of broken machinery and water pressure, they must contend with a mysterious aquatic threat stalking them at every turn…

 

The movie jumps right into the action within the first few minutes as everything goes to absolute hell in the station. Kristen Stewart stands front and center as the protagonist, complete with some inner monologues to hint at her background and motivations. She’s already on edge and anxious from past traumas and the world literally falling around her isn’t helping any. Stewart gives a stellar performance in fear to the disasters both manmade and the unknown.

Image via IMDB

The rest of the cast is rounded out by Vincent Cassel as the determined Captain of the vessel. Haunted by tragedies of his own, he will do anything to avoid further loss of life. T.J. Miller plays the typical comic relief/pop culture referencer (Miller currently a toxic presence due to a myriad of reasons in real life, though his casting and the film’s production being around three years prior) Mamoudou Athie is the first survivor that Stewart’s Norah encounters and helps unite with Jessica Henwick and John Gallagher Jr.’s characters to round out a motley crew of survivors. The dynamic between the surviving crew isn’t the most compelling since we don’t have much background on the characters, but it keeps the story moving forward and without any bad performance.

 

What really hooked me was the production design and settings of Underwater. William Eubank (The Signal) does an exemplary job of making almost every scene as claustrophobic and nerve wracking as possible. Be it having to crawl through flooded wreckage, or tip-toe across the ocean floor while horrifying undersea beasts roam about. It truly captures the aspects of ‘survival horror’ that have made horror movies and games like Alien and Resident Evil so popular. And back on the creatures, I don’t want to talk about them too much as they carry some surprises but they scared the hell out of me. Plain and simple. Establishing a loose Lovecraft tone that makes the movie even more otherworldly and its monsters all the more eldritch. Including one particular scene of oceanic fear, my jaw dropped!

 

Though not the most groundbreaking sci-fi horror movie, it is a rare class in it of itself: a big budgeted B-Movie. It’s hard for genre films to have the budgets to back up their scares and scenarios, so to have something like this come along, like a lost entry in the 1989 ‘wave’ of aqua horror movies following James Cameron’s The Abyss is a rare and welcome treat. Underwater is a shocker that deserves to be seen in theaters, on the biggest screen possible for the full intensity of the experience. Despite its standard plot and characters, with such performances, production, and style, it is all but guaranteed to be a cult classic.

Underwater opens in theaters Friday, January 10th

 

Image via IMDB

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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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