Orca


Terror just beneath the surface.



Year of Release: 1977
Also Known As: Orca: The Killer Whale, The Killer Whale
Genre: Horror/Drama
Rated: PG
Running Time: 92 minutes (1:32)
Director: Michael Anderson


Cast:

Richard Harris ... Captain Nolan
Charlotte Rampling ... Rachel Bedford
Peter Hooten ... Paul
Will Sampson ... Umilak
Bo Derek ... Annie
Keenan Wynn ... Novak
Robert Carradine ... Ken



Summary:

Searching for sharks off the coast of Newfoundland, deep-sea fisherman Captain Nolan sees one attacked and killed by a 40-foot whale! - the giant Orca. Scorning the anger of marine biologist Rachel Bedford, he sets out to catch an Orca alive. Instead, by a terrible error, he wounds and captures a pregnant female. Listening to the despairing cries of the dying whale's mate, he realizes he has destroyed a happy family. Much too late he remembers what Rachel said to him: that the Orca mates for life; is believed to be at least as intelligent as Man; and like Man, is capable of hatred and a lust for revenge. The male Orca follows Nolan's boat back to harbor and lies in wait for him to put to sea again. When he delays, it embarks on the systematic destruction of all other boats until the local fishermen order Nolan to leave. He agrees, because he has come to realize that the crime he has committed can only be expiated by accepting the whale's challenge to a duel to the death. By now his remorse has won him Rachel's sympathy and love, so she joins Nolan and his crew on a desperate voyage in which the Orca drives the vessel farther and farther north until they reach the iceflows of the Arctic Circle. A grim setting for a grim final struggle.


Review:

Orca, remindin' us that if you've got your heart set on sailin' out into the ocean to face Moby Prick on his home surf instead of just movin' to Iowa an startin' a corn plantation, you may wanna consider formulatin' some kinda plan first. I dunno what Richard Harris was thinkin', but I think I might take a tent pole or somethin' with me to prop that sucker's mouth open long enough to make it down that slip 'n slide of a gullet before it can snap off your bottom half an turn ya into Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump. I guess folks just had a little too much honor back in those days, ya know? Didn't wanna go into combat against three tons of P.O.'d panda fish with a weapon or anything cause then you might lose all the sensitivity cred you've built up with the savory Charlotte Rampling I guess, even though she's really just a poor man's Meg Foster when it comes right down to it. An speakin' of pale imitations, while I was over at Walleye's Topless Dancin' an Bait Shop buyin' my duck stamp an some cyanide tipped bullets for grouse season, I found out that the feds're gonna start makin' us use steel shot in our pump actions instead of the regular lead shells cause they're "concerned about the environmental ramifications" of what might happen if you were to shoot up a flock of geese an have a couple escape with that lead embedded in 'em. I guess they're afraid we're gonna give rise to a species of rabid, gangrenous Hitchcockian horrors who'll start eatin' the eyeballs outta the old folks who've got nothin' better to do than sit around the park an feed the birds cause their kids won't talk to 'em. But while that may be a legitimate concern, I think that what they're failin' to consider is that extra added kick the lead adds to the taste of a bird cause lets face it; if I wanted chicken I'd prolly just wait til dark an take a few outta Skunky Hernandez' coop an make it look like a weasel did it. Now, I don't wanna come across as some kinda anarchist or anything, so I used the steel shot like they said to find out just how bad it's gonna affect my vittle supplies for the winter. I'll admit that the steel sure does mangle the bird alright enough, but when Apollo went out to retrieve the first one I'd downed he spit the thing out like a sausage link at a Bar Mitzvah an hadda eat three quarters of a cow pattie before he could stop retchin' like a Bulimic at a Cheesecake Factory. Simply put, without that lead seasonin', all you can taste is the wheat, beans, corn, an that other crap they spend all their time eatin' an they end up tastin' about like a flour tortilla. So after I gave up on chokin' that borderline hippie vegan meat substitute down I tried feedin' it to Shankles (an for the record I once saw Shankles eat a rotten ground squirrel that'd been stuck in the grille of Cleave Furguson's 1979 Ford Bronco for three weeks), but after one sniff off that garbage he took off like an NFL runnin' back whose kids just threatened to call child protective services. Took me an hour an a half to pry 'im loose from the shower rod an I think he might have PTSD now. Sometimes I get the feelin' these government officials don't really stop to consider the consequences of their own actions. I mean sure, maybe the fauna'll look a little less undead in appearance without all that lead in their systems, but where will it all end, an at what cost?

Anyway, I'll figure somethin' out. In the meantime, what we've got here is a kinder, gentler, mash-up of Moby Dick an Jaws that really makes you stop an think. I dunno what it made everybody else think, but it made me think about how much more realistic it looked when Dumbledore got killed by an inflatable whale from 1977 than Alan Rickman's magic wand in that Harry Potter movie. Kinda pitiful, really. But more importantly, it features some pretty startlin' sequences that, while a bit disturbin' an downright depressin', are things that it's better to go through life knowin', even if it means havin' to face up to some pretty sick epiphanies. The first of which, is that if you think our personal freedoms're goin' down the tubes now, just wait'll you see this one an realize that the god damned NSA's been wire tappin' the ocean an listenin' in on the conversations of the entire whale population since the late 70s. Secondly, while whale abortion is a serious an complicated issue that sometimes boils down to what's best for the parents, it never gets easier watchin' that partially formed blubber beast flop outta the ole coot chute an splatter all over the deck like vomit from a hungover lookout up in the crow's nest. An third, a whale's a lot like your Alanis Morissette in that they tend to remind you of the mess you left when you went away in the most unpleasant manner possible. But I think the biggest thing about this one that I hadn't previously been privy to, was just how deeply depressed whales can get. I mean, in the movie this Mama whale ends up gettin' harpooned by Dumbledor after the Daddy whale heroically moves outta the way of the Japanese Blubber Buster 2000 harpoon launcher with optional laser sight an 25 round ammo clip, an decides that just cause she's gonna have a nasty scar from the serrated Orca opener an will thus never look as good as she once did, that she may as well pack it in an run 'erself face first through the ole commercial saucetrasizer an clog the Evinrude with whale shrapnel. So why does she think this is necessary? I mean, it's not like the Daddy whale left 'er after she got all stretched out an flabby after poppin' out dozens of calves over the years, so what makes this situation so different? It's just a flesh wound that'll eventually heal up an besides that, most guys're pretty well used to givin' a little extra space when the female's bleedin' anyway, so why's the whale figure this's a situation so terrible that it's best to just try uncloggin' the ship's Cuisinart propulsion system with 'er face? Look, you weren't that hot to begin with, it's okay. We men folk aren't nearly as hung up on looks as you gals think we are, there's really no reason for any of this. Cripes. Whales can be such drama queens sometimes.

The movie begins with these two Orcas gettin' all lovey dovey in a calculated attempt to make everybody who came to the theater to see a Jaws knockoff collectively sick, while hopin' that nobody'll notice they're just swimmin' around in a holdin' tank at Sea World that's smaller'n the bathroom in the average Walton household. Meanwhile, on land, the NSA's got a wire tap on the ocean to make sure nobody's plannin' a raid on the tuna schools in an effort to destabilize the fish market, cept when somebody (Rachel) goes out to check the connection on the mic a great white shows up an she hasta pretend she's a piece of the reef so it don't eat 'er. Unfortunately the only brain in this particular shot is of the coral variety, so once that don't work Rachel has to swim up to the raft where 'er partner is an about that time Captain Schnook (Nolan) pulls up in the Beluga Breaker an has Keenan Wynn start chummin' so Rachel'll have no choice but to get on his ship to see if he can get 'er to rock the plank. But once Nolan an the raft pilot start headin' for shore after Rachel wrecks their hunt, Bo Derek pops up on deck cause she hadn't started makin' movies with 'er husband yet where she generally popped up on a very similarly spelled word, an warns Nolan that Stabber Jaw's headed back their way. Then the guy in the raft hasta jump in the water cause his motor gives out like a nymphomaniac in a frat house an just as the shark's about to slurp 'im down like a Ramen noodle these two Orcas show up an use the Bushwhacker Batterin' Ram on the shark til it goes flyin' like a wig in a transvestite brawl. Some time later, Rachel's borin' the crap out of some college kids that're only in 'er class cause it's required for their lifeguard trainin' certificates in some real liberal country. So she prattles on awhile about how Orcas're so advanced that they've got better parental skills than Jo Frost, are more vindictive than a Republican congressman votin' on a welfare bill, an generally smarter'n anybody that's ever voluntarily watched an episode of Teen Mom. Then she heads back out to sea an gets real P.O.'d when she sees Nolan's got a holdin' tank set up, cause that's a sign that he's either plannin' to catch 'imself an Orca or that he's shackin' up with some skanky mermaid. She explains to 'im that an Orca's at least twice as intelligent as Rob Schneider an that puttin' one in a tank'd be crueler'n forcin' somebody to watch one of Rob's movies. She ultimately gives up on tryin' to get 'im to understand after decidin' that if he fishes as well as he sexes, he couldn't find a fish if it sat on his face. So Nolan heads out to find the great black an white whale an while Bo's fillin' up a syringe with enough roofies to put Taz down, she tells 'im she's worried that since Orcas're monogamous, they might be breakin' up a happy family an Nolan gets this look on his face like he's thinkin' she's one to talk. Then Keenan yells down to the control room that they've got whales off the poop deck an Nolan comes up an fires a harpoon into one that immediately proceeds to start screamin' like a porn star that went in for liposuction an woke up with a breast reduction.

So realizin' that 'er body is now horribly scarred an that no man could possibly want 'er, she whips around an charges the propeller til 'er face gets sliced up more'n Joan Rivers' so she won't have to see the look of horror in 'er husband's eyes when he sees 'er imperfect form. Then they haul 'er up over the deck an she poops out this fetus covered in twat snot an once Dad gets a good look at that he starts screamin' like Michelle Obama after findin' out the school gave 'er kids Jello at lunch while Nolan looks around like he dunno nothin' about the alleged double murder an hoses the fetus off the deck before PETA gets wind of it. But they ain't heard the last of mad Dad, cause a coupla hours later he starts usin' his face to perforate the bowels of the ship an pretty quick Bo falls down an breaks a leg for the first time in 'er career. After everybody else hits the deck, Paul (the guy who's there cause he looks like Richard Dreyfuss even though he can't act his way out of a parkin' ticket issued by a 300lb female meter maid) explains that Mama's somehow managed to stay alive despite bleedin' out enough plasma to keep the drugs flushed outta Keith Richards for an entire year. So Nolan tells Keenan to crawl out on the mast an cut loose like Kevin Bacon, an once Mama plunges into the sea like Amelia Earhart, Dad rears up an looks Nolan right in the eye while he plucks Keenan off the mast like meat off a shish-kabob. Only that don't really satisfy Dad's quest for vengeance, an besides that he's even more P.O.'d now since all the liquor in Keenan has shaved about 10% off his life expectancy, so he pushes his corpse bride all the way into port so that the next day when Nolan an Paul drive by they can take a good long look at what they've done. From here on out, Nolan's perpetually got this look on his face like his wife just divorced 'im an took his dog even though she never liked it, an when he gets down to the corpse he finds Rachel givin' Spamu 'er last rights. Then she an the wise old Indian (Umilak) tell 'im that the corpses' mate pushed the thing all the way in to shore an that if he thinks they're even now just cause the bugger scarfed down a bucket of Wynndings he's sadly mistaken. So now Nolan's feelin' about like he just shot a deer right in front of a troop of Cub Scouts that'd been feedin' it a few minutes before, an he heads over to Keenan's funeral where he asks the priest if it's possible to sin against an animal an the priest tells 'im that yeah you can, but that you've gotta be pretty desperate first. Then he an Paul head down to the dock where the head of the Coasta Nostra comes up an tells 'im the word on the street is that he's got a killer whale swimmin' around out in the bay scarin' the fish, an that if he don't do somethin' about it he's gonna pitch 'im out in the water an make 'im seep with the fishes. But by this point the Orca's already pretty tired of waitin' for Nolan to come face 'im mammal a mammal an so he heads in to port an starts installin' poopy hatches in all the ships' hulls before givin' Nolan the stink eye.

Later that night, The Codfather orders his guys to get the corpse in the ground an explains to Nolan that everybody's just a teensy bit upset about their livelihood becomin' a lot less lively an that they're makin' 'im an offer he can't refuse; we fix your boat, an you get the heck outta here, caperch? So Nolan trudges down to the dock to be alone, an all the sudden Dad pops outta the water an starts pointin' at 'im an screamin' like Donald Sutherland in Invasion of the Body Snatchers til Nolan starts havin' flashbacks of a car wreck. The next mornin', Umilak drops by Nolan's place to remind 'im that he's about as welcome in town as a pedophile livin' across the street from a day care center an that they all think he's a bigger chickenshit than Bert Lahr after his wife comes home an asks what he got done around the house while she was out huntin'. Nolan already knows all this, so Umilak starts feelin' sorry for 'im the way you might feel sorry for Woody Allen bein' forced to play dodge ball an tells 'im he'd like to help but the old Indian gods stopped givin' a damn about white people problems about a century ago an that he's pretty well screwed. So that night Nolan decides to prop up a dummy of 'imself down on the dock with the hope that Dad'll drop by an they can discuss the whole blood feud thing like rational adults without anybody gettin' digested, til Rachel comes by an tells 'im it won't work cause that whale wants a piece of his ass with Heinz 57 sauce to dip it in an no apology is gonna make up for spendin' the rest of his life sittin' alone watchin' the rest of the Orca pod do the humpback. Then Nolan tells 'er he gets why the whale's so P.O.'d cause he also had a salty old drunken Irishman kill his wife in an accident after she'd been impaled by a rod. But just when it seems like Rachel's about to swallow Nolan's sensitivity, Dad's thighdey senses start tinglin' an he hasta bust all the gas lines runnin' beneath the harbor to shut off Nolan's access to Rachel's twater main an pretty quick half the village is on fire while Nolan stands around with an "I'll bet I get blamed for this" look on his face. So the followin' morning after the fires've finally died down after bein' initially bolstered by all the liquor cabinets of the crusty old fishermen, Al Carpone calls up Nolan an tells 'im his boat's been patched up an that if he ain't gone by mornin' he's gonna send a buncha guys with really long last names an great hair over there to add 'im to their wharf prostitution ring. Nolan has sad face, so he calls up Rachel an tells 'er he's gonna have to split before the Pikezanos tie sandbags to his feet an toss 'im in their livewell an she reminds 'im that he's gonna get chewed up like a sofa cushion in the clutches of a bored bulldog if he does an plus he's got couple million hours of community service to get crackin' on after his whale burned mosta town to the ground, 'til he agrees to stick around.

Course, Nolan realizes this is gonna go over like a woman with self-respect at a Miss America competition, so he sends Paul to gas up the truck so he an Bo can get their tails outta there before they get marginalized by the Clambinos, only Umilak controls the gas racket in town an tells 'im the town's deboned an fileted if Nolan doesn't Ahab up an sends 'im home empty canded. But about that time Dad's patience finally wears thin an he starts takin' out the support beams on Nolan's shanty til the front wall snaps off an Nolan's entire collection of Ho's Nest Monthly achieves splash down an Bo ends up rollin' down the new 90 degree angle that used to be the livin' room floor to the end of Nolan's new seach-front property where Dad pops up an chomps off one of 'er drumsticks. Then the ambulance comes to get Bo an by now Nolan's finally remembered where he keeps his balls an starts screamin' at the ocean about how you can take a man's Keenan an you can take a man's Bo, but when you start screwin' with his porno you've gone too far. So the next mornin' Nolan enlists Paul, Umilak, Rachel, an Bobby Carradine to drive around the Atlantic an find Dad so he can grab somethin' pointy an stab at 'im from Hell's heart, only it takes several hours to find 'im after he went an locked 'imself in his trailer an refused to come out after findin' out what Jaws was gettin' paid for his upcomin' sequel. Eventually they're able to find 'im, but then Rachel just about blows the boat up tryin' to keep Nolan from dynamite fishin' without a permit an pretty quick Dad pops up an starts moonin' Nolan so he'll get P.O.'d enough to follow 'im. Unfortunately, en route they let their guard down long enough to allow Dad to get the drop on Bobby, who ends up gettin' Jonah'd after bein' processed by Dad's man eatin' mandibles. The next mornin', Nolan sits down at the captain's chair tryin' to make out the directions that Dad musta scribbled out for 'im til he gets this look on his face like he just figured out how to unscramble the Spice channel an tells everybody that Dad's leadin' 'em up to the Arctic Circle an that they'll be able to grab some burgers after Dad realizes too late that he won't be able to bust through the ice to breathe. Course by this point Umilak's startin' to think maybe he wasn't such a wise old Indian to sign on for this trip, cause after he points out that they don't have enough gas to make it back Nolan just kinda shrugs an tells 'im the Coast Guard'll tow their hinies outta there if they can't find an oil rig that accepts Canadian Express. So they slog along awhile til it gets so dark out that we start wonderin' if everybody got eaten an we're lookin' at the movie from the point of view of their chewed up carcasses, an eventually they just about Titanic themselves on an iceberg before Nolan comes out on deck an starts yellin' at Paul to get his poop deck in gear an find a way through. But Paul realizes that Nolan's a few hush puppies short of a sea food platter an starts lowerin' the life boat into the water so there'll be a way off when Nolan inevitably goes full Robert Shaw on 'em, an it's that moment Dad chooses to remind everybody he's still around an busts through the bottom of Paul's failboat for a little midnight snack. Cuttin' here.

Alrighty, well, the Orca certainly has an easier time swallowin' up all the B movie stars than the audience does swallowin' the plot, don't he? But really when you think about it, other than adding some additional theatrical license, what we've really got here is a reverse Moby Dick if you trim seven or eight hundred pages and made Ahab a little more sympathetic, right? And that's apparently one of the greatest literary works of all time, in addition to bein' one of the few books big enough to prop your car up on while you're changin' the oil, so is it really fair to say this movie stretches the boundaries of plausibility while Moby Dick reigns supreme over countless other works of fiction? You're damn right it is. I mean, it's not Jaws: The Revenge ridiculous, cause at least in this one the Orca's really only followin' Captain Schnook a few miles in to port, whereas in Jaws 4 the shark evidently got a copy of the script so he'd know to swim several thousand nautical miles south to finish off the survivin' Brodys, but it's still kinda silly when you try to process it. All that talk early on about the Orca bein' such a highly evolved creature and that it may be more intelligent than Man, while simultaneously havin' a serious proclivity towards vengeance? I dunno about anybody else, but that tendency towards vengeance seems precisely like the kinda evidence I'd use to determine that Man is anything *but* intelligent. So the idea that the Orca's brilliant because it "remembers those who've wronged it" and will stop at nothing to exact revenge just isn't flyin' for me. Really now, who do you think the smarter guy was; Ghandi or Charles Bronson? Of course then you start thinkin'; well, maybe the Orca really isn't written as though it's super intelligent, and maybe he's just lashing out at Richard Harris cause he just happens to be the only guy comin' in contact with it on a regular basis. But then there's that scene where the Orca installs escape hatches in the hulls of all the boats at the dock *except* Richard's because he clearly understands the politics of seamen AND the fact that if he shitcans Richard's boat he won't be able to lead 'im around the ocean like Kevin Costner fleein' from Dennis Hopper. So ultimately if you think Moby Dick is great fiction then you've really got no right trash talkin' Orca, and vice versa. Fortunately I don't think that, so I can spit out as many derogatory adjectives as I want with impunity. I still liked that scene where the two Orcas that're swimmin' around in a cement holdin' tank at Sea World cross-check the Great White so hard he flies outta the water like a Scud missile though, cause the producers knew that Jaws 2 was due out about a year from then and wanted everybody to know that the Orca can kill six Great Whites before breakfast, and therefore, they must be makin' the superior film. Even though the shark in that scene looked like somebody vacuum packed Bea Arthur an tossed 'er in a holdin' pond, it's still cute in a depressin' kinda way.

Okay then, lets feed Keenan Wynn to this sucker an see how well it holds its liquor. As I mentioned, the plot is essentially a kinder, gentler, reverse Moby Dick. Except that both Richard Harris and the whale come off as sympathetic and you really don't know who to root for, so you just kinda sit there waitin' to see who eats who til it's over. For my money, they've propped up the Orca way too far in terms of its logical cognitive abilities, so the smaller details of the plot kinda make the bigger picture pretty unbelievable. Now if the Orca had say, disabled the boat after they'd killed his mate and he spent the next 75 minutes torturing the captives on the boat, I could probably live with that, despite the fact that it'd get compared to the final sequence of the original Jaws, against which it would not be favorably contrasted. The acting is pretty decent, with the exception of Peter Hooten who plays Paul and seems to be there for little reason other than his physical resemblance to Richard Dreyfuss. It's even got a few B movie actors that anybody who enjoys these kinds of movies should be familiar with as well, but their screen time is pretty limited and it's disappointing how little they're in the movie. I mean, they kept Hooten alive for almost the entire movie and kill both Keenan Wynn and Bobby Carradine within five minutes of each one making their first appearance, so the priorities are all screwed up here. In any event, here's who matters and why: Richard Harris (The Hunchback 1997), Charlotte Rampling (Melancholia, Zardoz, Asylum), Will Sampson (Poltergeist II), Bo Derek (Horror 101), Keenan Wynn (Hyper Sapien: People from Another Star, Zoo Ship, The Clonus Horror, The Dark 1979, Piranha 1978, Laserblast, Wavelength), Robert Carradine (Slumber Party Slaughter, Tooth and Nail, Hoboken Hollow, Attack of the Sabertooth, Ghosts of Mars, Lycanthrope, Humanoids of the Deep 1996, Escape from L.A., Body Bags, The Tommyknockers, I Saw What You Did, TAG: The Assassination Game, Wavelength, Massacre at Central High, Sharktopus vs. Pteracuda), Peter Hooten (Souleater, House of Blood, Dr. Strange), Wayne Heffley (King Kong 1976), Don Berry (The Swarm, Doctor Dracula, Frankenstein 1970). You'll notice too that the more relevant the character, the more mainstream exposure they got later in their careers, so I'll run down the notable roles of the cast for the readers who lack the level of sophistication that we horror fans have. Richard Harris would probably be best known as the original Dumbledor from the first 2 Harry Potter movies before he passed away. But he also played Abbe Faria in The Count of Monte Cristo, Marcus Aurelius in Gladiator, and English Bob in Unforgiven. Charlotte Rumpling would probably prefer to be known for playing Lady Spencer in The Duchess, Laura Fischer in The Verdict, Sarah Morton in Swimming Pool, and possibly even Dorrie in Stardust Memories. Additionally, Will Sampson played Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Bo Derek was Chris Farley's mother-in-law in Tommyboy, and Robert Carradine was Lewis Skolnik in the Revenge of the Nerds series as well as Hillary Duff's Dad in that insufferable Lizzie McGuire TV series Disney used to run.

The special effects... well there're a few good ones, but the scale dips on the shitty side as well, with the shark I mentioned earlier being the centerpiece in the crap crown. Granted, it's only on screen for about three seconds, but it's so bad that you don't need any more time than that to realize it. The majority of the Orca footage is alright, with the majority of the shots utilizing real whales (albeit ones that're obviously in holding tanks, with some regularity), though they also had an animatronic Orca that was actually pretty decent. In addition, the glopola fetus that pops outta the Mama whale while she's strung up on the ship is pretty gross, if much too solid in structure. Needed to be softer to get that splat when it hit the deck. And the corpse of the Mama whale that the Daddy whale pushes in to shore is pretty pitiful as well, in terms of being both far too buoyant and too small. Not much gore either when the victims are eaten, though that was never going to happen. There's enough blood that if it didn't predate the PG-13 rating, it probably would've been given that rather than PG, but amusingly enough, like Jaws, it's somewhat graphic by PG standards. Though to its credit, if it was using miniatures during the destruction sequences on the harbor town, they were fantastic. Without rewinding it to take a closer look, I honestly couldn't tell, and that's the highest compliment you can give a special effect. The shooting locations, hate to say, probably going to be the high point. With rare exceptions, that's pretty much the kiss of death for a horror flick. The outdoor scenes were filmed in Malta and Newfoundland, Canada, which aren't particularly congruent from a climate perspective, but still look nice. Obviously, the majority was filmed on the Canadian coast where the weather is bleaker to give the town and the movie a sense of doom and gloom, but when the cast heads out to sea and you've got nothin' but sunshine, you can probably assume those were the scenes filmed around Malta. They don't spend much time showing off the ship, but it looks pretty decent, and the fishing village is very authentic as well, as you can imagine when that's probably exactly what it was. The differing locations don't exactly do any favors for the comparative analysis between the icebergs in the Canadian scenes and the ones in the Maltese shots either. Some seem to have dried, dripping paint attached to them while others don't, hmmm. The soundtrack was written by the prolific Italian composer, Ennio Morricone, and is, if nothing else, well suited to the overall tone of the movie. Frankly, it's kinda depressing; but then, so's the movie, so I'd say Ennio pretty well encapsulated what he was goin' for with this one. I kinda like it, and regardless of what you think of the rest of the movie and the direction they chose to go in, there's no way the soundtrack doesn't score it some much needed points. Because in general, the entire movie is a bit on the emo side, and Ennio does a great job of tackin' on about as much emotion as you can legally add without the inclusion of anime bangs. Overall, it's no Jaws, or even Jaws 3, but it's different and worth checking out if killer sea creatures are your thing. But beware, Drama awaits ye who enter here.


Rating: 62%