Thinking back over some horror films I remember fondly, I noticed that one sub-genre I often enjoy is science fiction. I feel that kind of film tends to make a little more sense, or at least the parts that don't make sense are easier for me to suspend disbelief for, and the visual aesthetic is more appealing to me than some other genres'. Perhaps the kind of threats in these films - machines, AI, radiation, mutation, the mysteries of space - fascinate me more than ghosts and demons and that sort of thing? I don't really know. Regardless, Underwater feels like a sci-fi to me - even if it's near-future at best and doesn't really try to do anything scientific - so I was pretty much on-board right from the start.
Funnily enough, even though I've been talking about horror movies this whole time, to me Underwater felt more like a disaster movie than anything else. For a large part of the runtime the real threat is simply the hostile environment, as the protagonists struggle to find a way back to the surface. And it works. What's more I feel it helps enhance the more traditional horror elements, as they work synergystically to create a tense and terrifying situation.
The plot was minimilastic, throwing us almost immediately into the thick of things and allowing us to learn of the characters through their actions and interactions instead of trying to spend a lot of time setting up backstory. That might not always be the best approach, but I thought it worked here. We care about the characters because we actually see them struggle, face their fear, and look out for each other, not because the film threw in a quick "family" montage at the start or something.
I'm not much of a judge of visual design and cinematography and that sort of thing, so all I can say is that I had no complaints, and I quite liked some of the visual elements. The suits especially caught me eye: they look much more advanced and just all-around cooler than your typical diving or space suit, but still looked very believable, very fit-for-purpose.
Kristen Stewart was fine, I really liked Vincent Cassel as the level-headed leader, and even T.J. Miller was significantly less annoying than I had expected him to be. But the real stand-out to me was Jessica Henwick. I thought she was great in Iron Fist, but I was still surprised by her performance here, which - enabled of course by the script - was the most memorable part of the film for me.
I'm a little torn on what to rate Underwater. I'm going to settle on a 7/10. I enjoyed it a lot, but I fear real horror movie enthusiasts won't find it scary enough.
Apparently a common criticism of Underwater is that it's derivative of Alien. But I don't really see it. I mean, sure, it has a lot of elements in common with Alien, but only that it use a lot of elements that are common to a great many sci-fi horror movies, and that I'm pretty sure actually predate Alien. Actually, some of those elements are probably common to a lot of generic sci-fi, and others to generic horror. I dunno, I just don't think that this film deserves to be called an Alien knock-off. I'm kind of reluctant to even mention it because I feel like I'm just perpetuating the idea, but I also feel the need to address it, so here we are. Honestly, Underwater reminds me more of Deep Rising than any other individual movie. Which is not a bad thing as Deep Rising was a fun little creature flick.
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