![]() ![]() A malevolent water god, Lovecraft describes it as follows: “ a monster of vaguely anthropoid outline, but with an octopus-like head whose face was a mass of feelers, a scaly, rubbery-looking body, prodigious claws on hind and fore feet, and long, narrow wings behind.” To anyone leaving the theatres after watching Underwater, this description is eerily similar, taking the amalgamation of all the audience’s worst fears about the ocean to new, otherworldly heights. Lovecraft’s short story, “The Call of Chtulhu”. With its tentacled face and threat of complete existential annihilation, it elicits images of Cthulhu, a cosmic entity that made its first appearance in H.P. ![]() It is a Gargantuan god, the design capitalizing on the potential of large cinema screens. The final monster of Underwater represents a threat of unprecedented scale, leaning into a more literary angle. ![]() Related: What To Expect From Underwater 2 It takes inspiration, but presents something new. Although some critics panned Underwater as a subaquatic Alien rip-off, it is measured in its homage to the classic sci-fi movie. The titles are similar, a single word that underlines the main threat of the movie: in Alien, the Xenomorph, in Underwater, the environment. The monster in Underwater expresses the same viciousness as Alien’s Xenomorph, an unrelenting threat of single-minded determination. It also borrows from Alien’s contrast of tight claustrophobic spaces against an agoraphobic vastness. In both, the crew initially encounters the monster in infant form: a creepy fetal creature unlike any ever witnessed before. ![]() Underwater clearly takes several cues from Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror flick Alien. Those who spend their time trawling the internet for images of what lies beneath the murky depths might recognize in the Underwater monster the elongated body of an oarfish, the wispy gelatin of a salp, the clouded eyes of a frilled shark, the needle-like teeth and vampire air of a fangtooth fish. It is a carefully designed creature that forms part of a long tradition of movie monsters, and rings true to real life. The monster in Underwater is disturbing: gelatinous, pallid, bony. ![]()
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