Creatures from the Abyss (1994)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Written by Richard Baumann
Directed by Al Passeri
Starring Michael Bon, Lauren De Palm, Clay Rogers, Sharon Twomey, and Ann Wolf

Features:

• director’s interview
  
• gallery
  

Rating: NR, suitable for 17+

Anamorphic: Yes

My Advice: There is no pain great enough.

Ok, so we have these twentysomethings who decide for some reason to paddle out into the middle of the ocean in a rubber raft. Of course a storm overtakes them, and they are forced to seek refuge on a seemingly-abandoned oceanographic research yacht. Once there, they make themselves at home and discover a freezer full of deep-sea fish. One of the party members decides to taste a white powder in the yacht’s lab, assuming it’s drugs of some sort. Of course it isn’t (it’s radioactive plankton), and he finds himself mutating into a deep-sea fish and wanting to have sex constantly (though this is pretty much what he was like before, sans the fins).

Back at the freezer, the fish are quickly thawing and other party members are attacked by these mysterious flying creatures, which are intent upon spawning with the human females. Oh, and there’s a scientist left over from before who knows what’s going on, but is frothing mad--at least until the very end when he can suddenly speak clearly but is quite rude. And there’s this plastic fish plaque on the wall near the cabins that spouts the time when you pass it. I don’t know why, but it’s there. At the end of the film, it gets all confused.

Let’s recap: flying mutant fish that like to contaminate/mutate the main characters and have sex with humans who then give birth to some really gross caviar. And did I mention that the fish fly? FLY?! And are small? But apparently can’t just be stepped on and smushed even when they’re crawling about on the floor? And they seem to be invisible too, as the fish’s-eye-view cam frequently shows them right next to actors who don’t seem to see/smell/sense/hear them.

The audio and video are mediocre at best. There are times when the dub recedes to mumbling, but I don’t guess you’re really missing much. The colors are clear enough, and the lighting is usually decent, but the camera does this occasional “scary” shaking thing that really just means you don’t know what’s going on--which is par for the course for this film.

All of this is really rather a shame, as the disc’s main feature is an interview with the director, who looks like a nice little man. Barking mad it seems, but nice. There is also a smallish picture gallery, should you want to actually see any of these scenes again.

I just don’t know what to say about this movie. It’s so bad that words fail. If you like to MST3K movies (or have committed some horrible crime), then by all means pick this one up. Otherwise, good God in Heaven, avoid it like a French rat in 1340. Basically, the only thing I can say about this movie is that it probably has the world’s most disturbing sex scene in it...and that’s not meant as a compliment.