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Inspector Hound
Jul 14, 2003

Xenomrph posted:

Per a recent interview, Underwater's director confirmed that in the last act the big honking monster is meant to be Cthulhu.

Ok that's what I figured. I didn't catch any references hinting at that beyond his appearance though, no one mentioned graduating from Miskatonic University or anything.

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Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Inspector Hound posted:

Ok that's what I figured. I didn't catch any references hinting at that beyond his appearance though, no one mentioned graduating from Miskatonic University or anything.

There’s an hour-long interview with the director on YouTube and he says that that was pretty much intentional. His logic was that that would be how “cosmic horror” would really play out - you wouldn’t know you were looking at it until suddenly you were looking at it, and like the characters you have to just mentally deal with what you’re seeing without any time to brace yourself. He felt blindsiding the audience was the best way to achieve that.

It’s a neat interview, he spends the first half talking about technical filmmaking stuff, and the second half talking about spoiler plot stuff.

https://youtu.be/SK0sk6JXYyI

Inspector Hound
Jul 14, 2003

Xenomrph posted:

There’s an hour-long interview with the director on YouTube and he says that that was pretty much intentional. His logic was that that would be how “cosmic horror” would really play out - you wouldn’t know you were looking at it until suddenly you were looking at it, and like the characters you have to just mentally deal with what you’re seeing without any time to brace yourself. He felt blindsiding the audience was the best way to achieve that.

It’s a neat interview, he spends the first half talking about technical filmmaking stuff, and the second half talking about spoiler plot stuff.

https://youtu.be/SK0sk6JXYyI

Yeah I cruised through the written one; it was added as an afterthought but his justification kind of works. I just mean from an Easter egg standpoint it's a bit of a shame he hadn't had it in mind the whole time so he could have added in little hints for the observant Lovecraft reader.

DeimosRising
Oct 17, 2005

¡Hola SEA!


Inspector Hound posted:

Yeah I cruised through the written one; it was added as an afterthought but his justification kind of works. I just mean from an Easter egg standpoint it's a bit of a shame he hadn't had it in mind the whole time so he could have added in little hints for the observant Lovecraft reader.

Every single thing with an even slightly lovecraft adjacent idea does this already. My kids watch scooby doo cartoons with miskatonic u jokes, at this point we’re well past the possibility of a reference being clever

Dr. Video Games 0112
Jan 7, 2004

serious business
Nice to see decent writing in a film that's overall fairly average or once would have been considered as average as it gets. Not that it's a tall task, it's not dialogue heavy, but so many modern horror films manage to gently caress it up somehow. Here you have actual believable characters behaving believably considering the situation with a very tasteful subtle amount of over the top, I think the people behind it aknowledged this as a problem directly and actually addressed it. I didn't mind it being imperfect, because of the competence presented.

Even in something like Cabin in the Woods, which seems beloved by many, personally I cant stand unbelievable characters that have some cartoony gimmick and seem to maintain it throughout any circumstance, as if they are roleplaying through a horror videogame playthrough rather than actually participating or experiencing what is being conveyed on screen. That's a movie I could never watch again for this reason, nothing is actually happening and it's all a drug trip by the way it's presented and you're aware of this throughout the sitting, by the end when you find out that it isn't you still dont really believe them.

Another thing I thought of was how in a lot of films like Ad Astra where the lead is someone overly famous, no matter how bad things get, you know everything will be wrapped up in a nice pink ribbon and all stakes are sabotaged no matter how "threat to all life" and "the universe could be destroyed" or whatever phrase is being repeated by the rest of the cast. In Underwater, as late as 10 mins to the end, I was not so certain that anyone would even survive, as it should be in a proper horror film. The structure of the logic in the film had presented up to that point, I was ready to conclude that each character will be killed one by one and then the credits would roll. Again something that would be overlooked in an average film but vital to creating tension and making you even care for characters that you know virtually nothing about or making you curiously ponder about how the production team will manage a plausible twist out of the situations they created without everything falling apart. I also appreciated the humor of how they actually did it.

I hate Ad Astra but it's not a horror film, it's just an example that I thought of when watching this. Another would be "pseudo realistic" movies like Gravity with Sandra Bullock having a tantrum in space or another character crying about missing their dog or something due to being isolated as if they are being held hostage and not actually trained and enthusiastic about their career. Real astronauts and even pilots are professionals that are trained to not overreact and keep their cool under any kind of pressure. I appreciated that the crew in Underwater were appropriately detached, reminding me of the jarheads in Aliens and when their normal self-morale and psychology training slowly came undone in the face of a true otherworldly horror, kind of like in Aliens, you could really appreciate and believe the weight of the situation.

Depressing that I am lauding this movie for what was once considered the bare minimum and fundamental blocks in a genre entry and to be completely honest Underwater is fairly average overall but displays a refreshing amount of competence and I would actually watch it again which is rare for a movie this late into the twilight of Hollywood's existance. This is starting to feel like a review also and just in case it is, I will say overall it's average and not a great movie. It's just a 2020 horror film in which they build tension and properly set up stakes, making it an pleasant surprise, enjoyable oddity unless you really hate that type of movie.

Then again average and competent was good enough to win movie of the year in 2007, so gently caress it, movie of the year.

Dr. Video Games 0112 fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Jan 26, 2020

Eat My Ghastly Ass
Jul 24, 2007

Dr. Video Games 0112 posted:

Real astronauts and even pilots are professionals that are trained to not overreact and keep their cool under any kind of pressure.

You can receive all the training in the world, sometimes it doesn’t matter. I’ve worked with plenty of people in healthcare who can’t keep a level head during high-stress, life-threatening scenarios. The ability to stay calm under that kind of pressure comes from experience. If anything, I think reactions like the intern research assistant’s are that much more realistic and a great portrayal of how normal people actually react in those circumstances.

Eat My Ghastly Ass
Jul 24, 2007

fuckin’ double post: saw the Color Out of Space for the second time tonight, movie is loving awesome, go see it

SuperMechagodzilla
Jun 9, 2007

NEWT REBORN

Inspector Hound posted:

My main observation is that it felt like it was missing its first act. We never get to see anything functioning properly or the station operating normally for a minute to orient us before everything goes wrong; we probably should have followed the research assistant down for her first day or something. It's a big ingredient--all the Alien movies had it except Resurrection, which sucked the hardest, The Abyss, The Thing, even fuckin Avatar, we need to see the thing that's going to be getting knocked down before it does.

The thing that’s getting knocked down is the crumbling rig, and what we see operating ‘normally’ are the evacuation procedures. Underwater is, quietly, a post-apocalyptic film.

It’s not a mistake; the premise is that poo poo’s irreparably hosed. And that’s a deliberate contrast to Avatar’s narrative of gradualist improvement through temporary crises.

In Cameron’s The Abyss, as with Aliens, there is no particular criticism of the drilling company. We actually have something of an alliance between the liberal company and the benevolent aliens, against insane conservative-types, as they work towards utopia. (The only twist in Avatar is that the role of the liberal company is filled by the organic computer-god Eywa who, in exchange for massive amounts of resources, provides an incredibly elaborate simulation of ‘nature’).

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Yarbald posted:

fuckin’ double post: saw the Color Out of Space for the second time tonight, movie is loving awesome, go see it
Is that in theatres, or on a streaming platform or anything?

Small Strange Bird
Sep 22, 2006

Merci, chaton!

Inspector Hound posted:

My main observation is that it felt like it was missing its first act. We never get to see anything functioning properly or the station operating normally for a minute to orient us before everything goes wrong; we probably should have followed the research assistant down for her first day or something. It's a big ingredient--all the Alien movies had it except Resurrection, which sucked the hardest, The Abyss, The Thing, even fuckin Avatar, we need to see the thing that's going to be getting knocked down before it does.
If Alien had never existed and were being pitched as a script today, I imagine some studio exec going "Yeah, I like it, but we need to pick up the pace. Have the alien come out of him at the end of Act 1, not the midpoint of Act 2." So how do we fill the next 30 minutes? "What, do I have to think of everything? You're the goddamn writers, make it work."

Inspector Hound
Jul 14, 2003

Payndz posted:

If Alien had never existed and were being pitched as a script today, I imagine some studio exec going "Yeah, I like it, but we need to pick up the pace. Have the alien come out of him at the end of Act 1, not the midpoint of Act 2." So how do we fill the next 30 minutes? "What, do I have to think of everything? You're the goddamn writers, make it work."

Yeah I'm sort of aware of this too, movies just go faster now, for good or ill.

SuperMechagodzilla posted:

It’s not a mistake; the premise is that poo poo’s irreparably hosed. And that’s a deliberate contrast to Avatar’s narrative of gradualist improvement through temporary crises.

In Cameron’s The Abyss, as with Aliens, there is no particular criticism of the drilling company. We actually have something of an alliance between the liberal company and the benevolent aliens, against insane conservative-types, as they work towards utopia.

Alright I can dig that, I kind of remember World Trade Center starting pretty abruptly too. Avatar may also have been a bad example because "the thing going correctly" was the invasion and exploitation of the planet haha

Inspector Hound fucked around with this message at 01:24 on Jan 27, 2020

Alehkhs
Oct 6, 2010

The Sorrow of Poets
I managed to catch this finally. Kinda an odd movie thread when OP lives more than 2 hours from the nearest theater, I realize.

Hot drat I enjoyed this flick! I definitely have some issues here and there, but nothing to keep me from enjoying a deep-sea aqua-horror film in the year 2020. From the limited behind-the-scenes stuff I've seen so far, I'm really hoping the DVD release nets us even more. The set and costume design was great. I'd kill for a scale replica of one of the suits to put on a shelf.

Re: Captain's vs Rodrigo's, They both exploded when compromised - the blast from Rodrigo threw two of the others out of the airlock. I don't think Captain was worried about his suit exploding and killing Norah, but rather that Norah's suit would undergo the same structural strain due to pressure as his.

On the pressure front, I think the film tries to have it both ways: Rodrigo being crushed and the external shots of the rig imploding both speak to the station not being pressurized to ambient. Captain's suit being compromised from going up too quickly points more to the opposite, where station - and the hardsuits - are pressurized to ambient. In that case, they would need to bleed off that pressure as they rose or they would pop. It caught my attention when I was watching, but it wasn't enough of an issue to really bring me out of enjoying the film. :shrug:

Anyways, have some goodies from the director (via his Instagram):


quote:

We built some pretty fun hidden details in the production design for @underwatermovie . I’m a huge fan of history within texture. I’ve always been inspired the WPA arts projects during the construction of things like the Hoover drat. I love the idea, that further into the future you go, the more history your looking at.



quote:

My @underwatermovie skate deck. @jaredpurrington created this amazing piece of art for some of the sets in Underwater. It was so sick I got it printed on a skateboard!



quote:

This was Jared Purrington’s early sketch of Norah in the suit. He came up with the idea early on that the suits would have to have some sort of beacons on them so people could identify each other in the dark. So we outfitted then with little glowing radio antennas. Interesting note is that in the actual deep, radio frequencies don’t work at all, almost everything is based on sound. Hence all the creatures down there using sonar. They say if you get close to a sperm whale when it clicks it can potentially kill you with the force! Literally.



quote:

This was @based_gunman work on the suit. He took @torfrick and Jareds work and pushed it to that juicy mecha level I love! We pulled back a tiny bit from it just to be reasonable but man I love his stuff!



quote:

Space or bottom of the ocean? We had a lot of concepts going on and a ton of talented artists working on different designs and color palettes. This was an early material pass done by @ashthorp Really cool stuff... we ended up leaning less clean but these ideas were really fun to explore! The shape of the suit was initially designed by @torfrick and @jaredpurrington then @based_gunman added to it. Finally @legacyeffects had to actually build the darn things! And eventually @calumalexanderwatt did the final color pass that you see in the movie! I’ll post some of those images soon!



quote:

Finally @calumalexanderwatt s color work on the suit. We took a lot of inspiration from from industrial color palettes and font design. Calum is a master of such things! We had a lot of fun working on this beast! Actually wearing it though... that’s a different story...


Alehkhs fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jan 27, 2020

Eat My Ghastly Ass
Jul 24, 2007

Xenomrph posted:

Is that in theatres, or on a streaming platform or anything?

It got a limited theater release, looks like it’ll be available digitally next month

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."

Yarbald posted:

It got a limited theater release, looks like it’ll be available digitally next month

Very limited, I can’t find a single screening in Florida.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming
What an absolute piece of poo poo. I can't believe the hype it got from this thread. It wasn't even okay. It was bad. It has the Game of Thrones problem in that you can't see half of what it even happening.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



escape artist posted:

What an absolute piece of poo poo. I can't believe the hype it got from this thread. It wasn't even okay. It was bad. It has the Game of Thrones problem in that you can't see half of what it even happening.

The visibility thing was probably at least partially intentional, because visibility at the bottom of the ocean tends to be awful.

escape artist
Sep 24, 2005

Slow train coming

Xenomrph posted:

The visibility thing was probably at least partially intentional, because visibility at the bottom of the ocean tends to be awful.
Right, which is the same thing the Game of Thrones creators said. I'm not trying to see a documentary though, I'm trying to see a motion picture that conveys a story. I could not tell what was going on either story because of that stylistic choice. Also, it wasn't just the darkness. The constant jump cuts, too.

Jack B Nimble
Dec 25, 2007


Soiled Meat
It's ok to not be able to tell what's happening, visually, in a scene. That's something the movie can use and work with, and it isn't an automatic failure if it happens.

Are you sure you didn't have other problems with the film that was compounding how you felt about the...three? scenes where characters are spinning in place, telling each other they can't see something?

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



I think the “cant see anything” stuff may have worked for me because the inability to discern your surroundings and whether you’re safe or not is one of the things that scares me the most about deep ocean in real life.

Jenny Agutter
Mar 18, 2009

I started laughing in the theater when Kristen Stewart did a reverse alien. cool rear end movie

Real Cool Catfish
Jun 6, 2011
Boy the Sealab 2021 film reboot took a dark turn.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



While poking around on the Amazon Prime app I noticed that 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is available to stream with Prime. Is that worth my time? I haven’t seen the first one.

For that matter, is the first one worth my time? It’s not available on Prime right now but maybe it’ll get rotated in someday. :shrug:

LemonLimeSoda
Jan 23, 2020

Xenomrph posted:

While poking around on the Amazon Prime app I noticed that 47 Meters Down: Uncaged is available to stream with Prime. Is that worth my time? I haven’t seen the first one.

For that matter, is the first one worth my time? It’s not available on Prime right now but maybe it’ll get rotated in someday. :shrug:

I liked it
Picture a Halloween movie where Michael Meyers is a shark and they're all scuba diving in underwater ancient ruins

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



LemonLimeSoda posted:

I liked it
Picture a Halloween movie where Michael Meyers is a shark and they're all scuba diving in underwater ancient ruins

I watched it the other night and I dug it! The blind sharks were creepy-looking and effectively menacing, whether they were just prowling around or actively attacking. The jump scare when one of the sharks bites the little drone thing got me real good, Jesus Christ.
The bit with the dad monologuing and then getting murdered mid-sentence had to be an intentional Deep Blue Sea reference, right? I mean the more it went on the more obvious it was where it was going and what was going to happen.

Alehkhs
Oct 6, 2010

The Sorrow of Poets
Underwater is out on disc and digital this week, so hopefully we'll get some fresh viewers in here. Following the "less than 6 months to a year" guideline for CineD, please continue to use spoiler tags for now.

Extra features for this week's includes a deleted scene, several "extended" scenes, and an alternate ending (Curious about that one, but apparently it's only included with the digital release?), all with optional commentary. There are also a couple behind-the-scenes features, as well as a film commentary from William Eubank (Director), Jared Purrington (Artist), and Phil Gawthorne (Writer).


Also, here's a neat look at some before-and-after video effects shots for the film. NOTE: THIS SHOWS SHOTS FROM THE 'BIG REVEAL' AND THE ENDING!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hpd58zwWYUk

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



My Best Buy preorder says it’s not out until the 14th, hm.

Alehkhs
Oct 6, 2010

The Sorrow of Poets
Ah, whoops - I had it as the 11th in my head, and I'd seen a few posts in the Horror Thread of people watching it this week, so I figured DVDs were moving a bit early. But yeah, it looks like it's out next week. v:shobon:v

Seeing you posting here actually just reminded me: I'm interested in the extra material and am looking forward to that, but I think the thing I'm most anxious about is whether or not the home release will have acceptable light levels. Hopefully they didn't screw with them too much between the theater and now (I suspect they didn't really do much at all, given the production history of the movie at this point), because it's already a dark movie to begin with, and I'd hate for light-level issues to plague this movie like the AvP2 or Godzilla (2014) home video releases. :ohdear: Neither of the folks who posted in the Horror Thread about seeing it just recently mentioned it being too dark though, so fingers crossed!

Inspector Hound
Jul 14, 2003

Lol this movie is awful but it's the only thing I've seen in theaters in like three years, I'm all over it

Alehkhs
Oct 6, 2010

The Sorrow of Poets
Behind-the-scenes footage/pre-release interview compilation. Some spoilers, obviously:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hCKYDJa1_8

If I had any sort of skill or ability in cosplay manufacturing, I'd be making myself one of the pressure suits.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



Can anyone spoil the alternate ending?

The_Doctor
Mar 29, 2007

"The entire history of this incarnation is one of temporal orbits, retcons, paradoxes, parallel time lines, reiterations, and divergences. How anyone can make head or tail of all this chaos, I don't know."
Stewart finds Vincent Cassel in a half-formed cocoon.

A4R8
Feb 28, 2020
This film is easily the most competent, theatrically released creature feature I have seen in years. What a ride.

The production values, camera shots, and cinematography are top-notch here. The characters behaved believably in the situations they were in. The voice-over in the beginning tying into the end was a nice touch, and I greatly appreciated the anti-corporate message in an era of belligerent, late capitalism. Lovecraftian creature designs are always unnerving in the best way.

Highly recommend this - it’s great escapism.

A4R8 fucked around with this message at 01:40 on Apr 28, 2020

Alehkhs
Oct 6, 2010

The Sorrow of Poets

Xenomrph posted:

Can anyone spoil the alternate ending?

Alternate Ending:
After Norah begins the scuttle sequence, she takes a second look at the damaged lifepod and manages to override the safety/Repair an electrical system. She jettisons to the surface.

Also, a day late sharing this tweet here, but I thought you might get a kick out of it:

https://twitter.com/superswift/status/1254499218577747969?s=19

A4R8
Feb 28, 2020
C’thulhu in the same universe as the xenomorph makes sense.

Xenomrph
Dec 9, 2005

AvP Nerd/Fanboy/Shill



A4R8 posted:

C’thulhu in the same universe as the xenomorph makes sense.

There’s an Aliens comic where this all but happens.

https://www.avpgalaxy.net/website/a...ens-elder-gods/

Bullbar
Apr 18, 2007

The Aristocrats!
Hey this was pretty good. Nothing groundbreaking as everyone else has said, but competent and cool and full of good little design choices. I absolutely love those suits.

Obviously a movie like this is ripping off Alien, but I think there's also a degree of like... Alien tapped so effectively into a specific industrial aesthetic that totally exists in the real world, at least to some degree, that it's hard to do anything that doesn't reflect it somehow

SHISHKABOB
Nov 30, 2012

Fun Shoe
Great movie! I was hoping we'd get to see more of the big hole in the ground where the monster came from, but the shot they give of it was really cool. Reminded me of the shot in the HBO show Chernobyl when they show the core burning.

Dreadwroth2
Feb 28, 2019

by Cyrano4747
I really liked this movie, just going full speed from the credits was really fun. It felt kind of like a Cloverfield side story if it was done really competently. Plus the monsters were nice and super unnerving.

Sio
Jan 20, 2007

better red than dead

escape artist posted:

What an absolute piece of poo poo. I can't believe the hype it got from this thread. It wasn't even okay. It was bad. It has the Game of Thrones problem in that you can't see half of what it even happening.

Yeahhhh... I was excited to watch this based on the thread's reactions, but woof. The best thing I can say about it is that it was mercifully short.

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ephori
Sep 1, 2006

Dinosaur Gum

A4R8 posted:

This film is easily the most competent, theatrically released creature feature I have seen in years. What a ride.

The production values, camera shots, and cinematography are top-notch here. The characters behaved believably in the situations they were in. The voice-over in the beginning tying into the end was a nice touch, and I greatly appreciated the anti-corporate message in an era of belligerent, late capitalism. Lovecraftian creature designs are always unnerving in the best way.

Highly recommend this - it’s great escapism.

I agree with this 100%. I absolutely don’t understand the poor reviews. This movie was so well executed, didn’t overstay it’s welcome, and had a fantastic pace from start to finish. This was the biggest surprise for me in a long time. I had seriously low expectations after all the reviews and kept waiting for the movie to suddenly nosedive and it never happened. It’s ‘just’ a monster movie, but just so well executed.

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