Kraken: Le Monstre des Profondeurs

HEADS UP: While watching KRAKEN: TENTACLES OF THE DEEP, you might notice the pungent aroma of months-old, sunbaked chum.

It's the tedious tale of a man seeking revenge for his parents, who were killed by the titular terror. There are also some treasure hunters, along with the ne'er-do-wells who seek to abscond with the treasure.

How could this be bad?

Enter the multi-armed mess itself, a cartoonish CGI abomination that's so utterly preposterous that it takes you immediately out of the movie and leaves you there. Even the fish in MR. LIMPET was more realistic. And more frightening!

TIP: To recreate the feeling of watching this "movie" without having to actually sit through it, simply sit with wet spaghetti on your head until you can't take it any more...

At one point, still very early in the film, the male lead character can be seen reading a copy of Jules Verne's legendary novel "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea" and even later in the film the book is mentioned several times more. This wasn't a coincidental choice, as the novel (and even more so the classic 50's film starring Kirk Douglas) largely introduced and immediately popularized the notorious Kraken-monster. The Kraken, these days primarily known as the thing that swallowed Johnny Depp in "Pirates of the Caribbean", is a gigantic type of squid that can reach a size of nearly 46 feet and reigns over the darkest depths of the sea. Normally the Kraken only lives in the Northern regions, like the cold seas of Norway and Iceland, but according to the script of this low-keyed and forgettable made-for-TV creature feature, the monster can easily also dwell American ocean stretches and it suddenly even got promoted to being the guardian of ancient Greek artifacts! For you see, the Kraken's territory in "Deadly Waters" encompasses Desolation Passage because that's where the valuable opal rests in a shipwreck, and the monster attacks everyone who sails in this passage, whether their intentions are bad (like multiple treasure hunters) or harmless (like Ray's parents). This may sound like a very interesting concept for a monstrous horror movie, but "Deadly Waters" is dreadfully boring and poorly made. I anticipated the giant squid monster to be entirely computer engineered, but it's even worse that anyone could fear, as it looks like a cute and big-eyed underwater puppy. The Kraken never looks menacing, not even when its tentacles embrace a medium-sized ship. The underwater cinematography is unclear and the monster's attacks are never properly shown, for obvious reasons. At best, we see people getting thrown into the water and pulled down to the depths. With a slight bit of luck, the water even colors a bit red. The acting performances are weak and the characters totally implausible. Nicole and Jenny hardly look like brilliant archaeologists in their tiny bikinis and Jack Scalia is probably the least convincing mafia lord ever. Why did I watch this junk, I do not know. They should make a law against the spreading of TV-movies in video stores, especially when they do not indicate anywhere it's a TV movie! Director Tibor Takács might consider a late career change, as he hasn't accomplished anything special since the late 80's, when he made "The Gate" and "I, Madman".

What if I told you this low-budget sea monster movie was so "off," I would have sworn it was shot in South Africa, which has given us many very bad sea creature flicks. It apparently was shot in Canada, which I still find hard to believe -- not that most Canadian-lensed flicks aren't just as abysmal. Two groups of people are after a treasured artifact, which is guarded by a giant squid. The two groups come to blows, but in the end the squid takes care of a lot of them. The only "name" actor is TV thespian Jack Scalia, who has seen better days. So has the director, who gave us the surreal and sublime THE GATE back in the day. I just can't get over how odd this movie feels. In a very small way, the plot resembles that of THE DEEP. However, it is not worth watching, unless you're having trouble sleeping.

"Kraken: Tentacles of the Deep" is an all-right creature feature.

**SPOILERS**

Off the coast of, a diving crew, Nicole, (Victoria Pratt) Jenny, (Kristi Angus) and Michael, (Cory Montkeith) find a collection of sunken ships from throughout different time periods sunk in the area. Ray, (Charlie O'Connell) hears this and offers his help. After going on a dive, they are attacked by a giant squid, and barely make it back. Maxwell Odemus, (Jack Scalia) an old rival of Nicole's, arrives and offers a reluctant Nicole a proposition about the creature. After finding the true nature of the treasure found earlier, the two teams race to find it before being killed by the protective squid.

The Good News: As far as giant squid movies go, this one wasn't all that bad. The best aspect is that it decides not to spend all the time on the creature and instead weaves into the lives of others, rather than just being stuck over a single night of carnage. It takes place over a couple days, and that's a rare sight for a film like this. It was also a pretty nice idea to not make it just a biological mutation and was instead just a regular creature. That makes for a far more believable monster. The underwater action is all great, combining to make some great moments. The first attack near the wreck is pretty suspenseful, as it's hard to really get a sense of what's going on in the scene and there's an air that something isn't quite right. It's one of the few scenes around that features a similar idea that's successfully executed right, making the suspense out of what is on-screen through the elements presented. The second dive does the suspense to a much lesser degree, but it makes up for it with the addition of a couple kills and some gore to the mix that is a little welcome. The few non-dragging deaths in here was also nice, but it's only too bad that it hardly ever happened.

The Bad News: Frankly, this one suffers from one nagging problem that all similar films suffer from; the use of bad, cheap, phony looking CGI to render the monster. It looks very bad, hardly ever meshes with the actors on the screen, and doesn't really gel with the general rest of the film. It even changes sizes a couple times, making it less of threat. It really should be stopped. The only other really big gripe with the film is that it has a majority of deaths that just involve pulling someone under the water. Most of the kills are done that way, and it really didn't do a lot to establish a general feel for the creature. a couple of different methods would've made it a little more of a frightening creature. There's still a couple of other little moments in here that didn't work or were examples of the usual disregard for logic, plot, continuity or whatever else the Sci-Fi Channel's originals are consistently missing, which are in abundance here as well.

The Final Verdict: It's a pretty decent film, but there's still some decent work in there along the way. The biggest thing is that the killer in the film isn't all that threatening, which can really destroy many films. Had that been fixed, it would've been an alright film at best.

Rated : Violence and some language

Thirty years ago, Ray Reiter (Charlie O'Connell) witnessed the death of his parents by the kraken. Determined to avenge their murders, he joins a perilous high seas expedition that brings him face to face with the kraken, the guardian of the Greek Opal. Oh, and there is a crime lord involved in here somewhere, too.

This film is pretty awful. It looks like it was made for the SyFy network (and probably was), and its star power is Charlie O'Connell, the cheap version of Jerry O'Connell with a nastier voice. There is a part where they are looking for a Trojan mask. I have no idea how it got underwater, or how they had photos of it before it was surfaced (although two others exist).

Product placement from Diet Pepsi. How Pepsi felt this in any way helped their image is beyond me.

The soft pop rock totally not necessary... takes away from the film, which would have been better with a non-vocal score.

Christa Campbell appears, but this does not save the film.