Underwater (2020)

 Score: 4 / 5

I hadn't seen many trailers for Kristen Stewart's latest outing amidst the flurry of the holidays and pre-awards season, but it's been a long summer and I finally got around to viewing it. Having forgot almost everything in the trailers, I only knew the plot revolved around her getting stuck in a research station at the bottom of the ocean. I didn't know that the disaster would happen in the very first scene. I didn't know that Stewart has turned into a very physical actress. I didn't know that this movie would be so technically accomplished. And I certainly didn't know I was going to really enjoy it.

Underwater takes place entirely under water; at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, in fact, so under a lot of water. Before we know anything about anything, Kristen Stewart's tooth-brushing is suddenly interrupted by an earthquake. The submerged station -- which seems to be a research facility as well as a drill -- is nearly destroyed, and the few survivors race against time to gather near the escape pods. But they're all gone. Knowing they will die in the facility, they don deep-sea suits and drop to the ocean floor (not without casualty), with the insane goal of walking a mile to another station. As if it weren't already a thrilling update to a disaster movie, we soon learn that they are being hunted in the pitch-black water.

*Spoiler alert*

In the impossibly dark atmosphere (or lack of), the movie often looks and feels like a space movie. In fact, substitute just a couple of visuals, and we have what amounts to Ridley Scott's Alien. People are forced to travel between relatively safe spots where they can recharge and clean their suits; the pressure is exhausting and claustrophobic; we suspect they will all die. And then there's the humanoid monsters hunting them. I was a bit bewildered by this because I simply didn't expect it, and while the scares are mostly effective and well-designed, the horror of this movie felt increasingly gimmicky. It's just that we've seen it all before, you know? Throw the Xenomorph into James Cameron's The Abyss, and that's this movie, right?

Wrong. Because in Underwater's climax, Stewart and the last survivors have to navigate a hallway that serves as a nesting ground for these creatures. Hanging like bats, they seem to be dormant for the present, until of course one is awakened by the clumsy intruders (to be fair, they are wearing those unwieldy suits). Once Stewart extricates herself from being swallowed by a particularly hangry monster, she fires a flare gun into open water for a distraction and for, you know, a little enlightenment. And suddenly we see with her that a titan has emerged from the depths. No, this isn't The Meg. 

It's Cthulhu.

I know, I know, it's weird. But honestly the shock of that single shot was enough to bowl me over, and I still haven't quite recovered. It's the money shot of the year. We could talk about whether the movie deserves to be in Lovecraftian canon all we want, but that revelatory shot is the single coolest, most effectively horrifying shot in any movie inspired by the Lovecraft mythos. There are a couple passing hints earlier in the film that something strange was going on behind the scenes with the drilling company, including a pentagram drawn on a blueprint of the first drill site. There really isn't anything like xenophobia, paranoia, racism, madness, or cult worship, which may be why the reveal is so damn shocking.

Sure, it's probably even a cheap ploy by the filmmakers. But before that point, it was already an effective movie in its own right, derivative though it is. It's lean, it's mean; it drops us literally as the action explodes, and it never relents its horror until the credits start rolling. It has no pretense, no unnecessary fluff; it gives exactly what it wants and takes exactly what it wants. It's perfectly self-contained, mercifully brief in length, and doesn't even give you enough time to consider disliking what you're watching. It boasts some real technical artistry, too, especially in sound design and cinematography from the criminally underrated Bojan Bazelli (Hairspray, Burlesque, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Ring, Pete's Dragon, A Cure for Wellness, and Spectral, among others). And then to have that big bastard come clomping out, Underwater totally won me over. I can't exactly articulate why, but I just really had a blast with this flick. What a ridiculous delight.