Gas up the Sea-Doo, because Deep Rising is the Greatest Movie EVER?
Click on the DVD cover or the title above to download our review of the film, featuring guest host Matt “Saint Mort” Kelly of the Horror Movie Night podcast.
Review in a Nutshell: A typical Stephen Summers action-horror movie with some questionable screenwriting and some dodgy CG, Deep Rising is none-the-less remembered fondly by many fans. I am not one of those fans.
The Greatest Movie EVER! Podcast 
One of the best boat explosions in cinema history. Only topped by Cutthroat Island.
Nooo, Treat Williams was the bad guy in The Phantom, The Shadow with Alec Baldwin had John Lone and Tim Curry but two noirish crime-fighters in Art Deco 1930’s New York released at the mid 1990’s would be easy to confuse. Should’ve had more love for Kevin J. O’Connor, you need to watch Lord of Illusions where he was earlier cast with Famke Jansen. He usually dies in the Summer films, in The Mummy and as Dr Mindbender in G.I. Joe. He’s good in The Master and There will be blood. And Treat Williams is most memorable for dancing on the dinner table in Hair. Final note: never let realism get in the way of an enjoyable experience, why Deep Rising fails is for other reasons, because with a movie like this all the bad things you mention is supposed to make it fun but some how it doesn’t get there and I’m not sure why, maybe something like the strange way many 1990’s films was being over-the-top but lacked both a temporary as well as lasting appeal. The Indy Jones-type Williams and buddyesque quipping with O’Connor as well as big action set-pieces, despite it’s technical achievements are all the reasons why it should’ve been a modest hit or at least a cult film but instead it’s just, mweh, shoulder shruggingly uninteresting for the most part.
Kevin J. O’Connor sure didn’t survive “There Will Be Blood”.
Anyway, I never really had a problem with the creature’s anatomy as you guys did. It’s supposed to be some unknown, might-as-well-be-alien, underwater life form, it could have whatever it has for anatomy.
Also, I saw this when I was in my early-20s in theaters and had a good time, largely because I saw it with a friend. It’s a good dumb movie but I really haven’t bothered to go back and watch it. I will say that the cut we saw did have Pantucci surviving, so I’m wondering if were this second cut came from (also, I read that ending as another octopoid monster, not King Kong). I will give you the complaints about Sommers ripping off other movies like Aliens and him lying to the audience. Also, I think Djimon Hounsu did “Amistad” after or concurrently with this: “Deep Rising” was filmed in 1996 and was to be released in the fall of 1997, but had been pushed until the January dead zone.
Another horror on a boat to skip is Harbinger Down. But Resident Evil Revelations is pretty cool
I can never remember – is this the one with Julianna Margulies, or is that Ghost Ship…?
The German title is”Octalus” kinda giving away that it’s one big monster. I’m not sure if it even has eight tentacles? But I remember it as a movie with amazingly good effects for that kind (B-Movie) of movie, I have to check the budget. I have to watch it again to see what the effects look to me now. I also remember it as one of the movies that doesn’t take them too serious without being totally ridiculous.
Oh and Xander Drax wasn’t Vin Diesel’s character out of xXx, it was Treat Williams’ bad guy in The Phantom, not The Shadow mind you…