Leviathan [VHS]

Coming in the late 1980s with all the momentum sprung from the "Alien" original and first repeat, "Leviathan" sought to take the alien model underwater, where a group of trash collectors fights on-board monsters with saws and flamethrowers.

The producers of this film knew a good model when they found it and obviously allowed the audience to laugh at their copycat ways by creating aliens that alternately look like tongues with teeth and moving intestines. There's also a paean to the real "Alien" near the end that Peter Weller does away with by squishing it's head in an elevator shaft.

And, in the final scene, you won't believe how hokey and stupid this kind of movie could be just a few years before the advent on high tech and high gloss computerization became de riguer in this type of thing. It's worth it to sit through the whole thing just to see that unbelievably dumb final scene.

Weller "starred" in this vehicle two years after his biggest hit, 1987's "RoboCop". This didn't do much for his reputation even though the cast included some great eye candy in Amanda Pays and the steely blue eyes of Meg Foster. A solid supporting cast headed by the great Richard Crenna, Ernie Hudson and Hector Elizondo offer a high level of acting credibility.

Still, they can't make sense of this mishmash which, oddly and fantastically, still works as horror. Leonard Maltin says to, "Skip it" on this one but I'd disagree. I think there's enough humor, whether intentional or unintentional, eye candy, schlock horror and fine acting to give you your money's worth. It didn't work as a big release in the theater but it's pretty good entertainment on a Tuesday night on your home system.

Plot synapsis: Underwater mining rig, day 87 of a 90 day tour, goof-off sexist jerk wanders off and finds a sunken Russian freighter.

The cast consists of Peter Weller as the geologist boss, Richard Crenna as the semi-doctor and crewed by Ernie Hudson (who gets some of the best lines and steals his scenes), Amanda Pays (and her annoyingly fake accent) Daniel Stern, Michael Carmine, an adorable Lisa Eilbacher, Meg Foster (what IS it about her eyes? And why was she trying so hard to do a crappy acting job?), and the wonderful Hector Elizondo.

After ALIEN did the haunted house in space so successfully there were a lot of immitators. Then we had a few underwater adventures which did fairly well in a vauge sort of way. Think of this as a cheap way of combining both. Except for Pays and Foster, we have a group of really fine actors working in an underwater mining facility.

Personal note: Seriously, if this had been real and I was Pays' charactor I would have severly hurt the Stern character. His behavior was borish to the point of distracting from the movie and something no decent boss would have allowed.

Anyway, the movie cover said the magic words: GENETIC MUTATION! I was hooked, as always. Pays and Stern are outside doing their job when Stern wanders off (why?) and falls off a cliff. Movie goers probably cheered at that point. Pays goes after him, wandering through fakey looking sea worms and finds the Russian freighter. I liked the scary fish that pops up in Pays' face. Stern shows up with a huge safe, carrying it like it weighs 20 pounds instead of several hundred and they head back.

The safe contains a lot of 'personal effects' from deceased crewmembers which should have triggered a lot more concern than it did. Sterns character slips out a flask of vodka and hides it. Eilbacher's character sees him do it, and later talks him into sharing it with her. Because of the extreme danger of the job, alcohol is not permitted there.

Eventually the Crenna figures out the Russians were doing GENETIC EXPERIMENTATION (I love this stuff) on it's own crew by doctoring their vodka. By the time Crenna comes up with that of course, Stern and Eilbacher are already infected. It hits Stern first, and hardest, then things begin getting out of control.

Up to this point the movie does quite well. It's best effects were, unfortunately, the ones you don't see, using shadow and noise. As good as the cast mostly was, the sets, the production, etc., the special effects were really substandard. Or to put it another way, they were just cheesy and bad, a jarring note to an otherwise interesting movie.

There was not a lot of new material here, nothing terribly original, but it is still not bad. Flawed by it's special effects, surely, but some good acting and a decent script saves it from being a B movie.

Since the first two Alien films, there have been countless big budget and low budget thrillers that take the formula of the previously mentioned films and make it so contrived that there is hardly a shred of originality left in the idea. Leviathan is close to being an example of this, and while it's hardly original in it's plot, the cast, effects, and set designs help it stand above other derivative drivel like Deep Star Six and other Alien rip off's to come out of the 80's. Peter Weller, Ernie Hudson, the late Richard Crenna, and Daniel Stern are among the crew members of a salvage crew who find a submerged Russian ship. After Stern's character treats himself to some vodka found on board, he is transmutated into a slimy and hungry creature that is soon picking the crew off one by one. Not original in the least, but it has enough going for it to keep it from going overboard into complete absurdity.