Deepstar Six isn't so much a creature feature so much as it is a film that features a creature. I know those are kind of the same thing, but, well, imagine if
Poseidon opened with a sea monster sinking the ship, and then the survivors have to go through the debris, flooded sections, and explosions for 80 beast-free minutes, and then the monster pops up again for the third act just to menace the characters a little more before they escape and the end credits roll. That's what
Deepstar Six is like.
The crew of a station on the ocean floor are on a mission to secure some missiles or something along those lines when the missiles are accidentally detonated, seriously messing the station up. Oh, and a giant lobster is giving them trouble too. This is kind of sad: We have this bloody spectacular monster, a perfectly good full-sized animatronic beast that looks cool and manages to create some sense of menace, and yet, its barely in the movie other than people talking about it a bit here and there. It never really makes its presence known until an hour in.
The writing, acting, and direction vary from above-average to rather dull, but at least the score does a good job of conveying a sense of action and suspense. The scenes with the monster are deserving of applause, but again, there's not many of those here. Despite the fact that the creature is more of an afterthought than an actual problem for the characters,
Deepstar Six is still a fairly lively movie. If your looking for gore, you won't be too disappointed either, even though this isn't a bloodbath, there's still some Ick Factor here, particularly a rather nasty scene where a guy is attempting to get to the surface in a pressurized escape pod, and ends up melting into a bloody mess instead.
Though it should have been ripping off
Alien,
Deepstar Six more rips off
The Poseidon Adventure instead. I would've been singing praises if it had more of the creature. That was a great monster they had there; only problem is, the rest of the film fails to impress as much as the beast and besides, there wasn't enough of the monster there. 103 minutes and the bloody thing is only in 15 of them!
SCORE:
1/2 out of five