Up from the Depths

I played the photographer in this torpid screecher. One reason the dialog is so stilted, is that somehow the sound track and the written script were lost. Weeks after we'd finished shooting, some of us "actors" assembled in a theater to watch silent clips, try to remember what we'd said, and dub that in. It's ad libbed, and the reason some people sound like others is that we dubbed for more than ourselves. The underwater scenes (I was shooting a topless babe named "Iris Lee" when the monster ate her, then ate me) were filmed in about 25' of water over a South China Sea reef, but the budget did not provide breathing apparatus for me. They gave me a mask and the 2nd stage of a SCUBA regulator with a red garden hose taped to it, told me to "act like I was breathing." At -15', with the most horrendous hangover I ever had. Then, the underwater camera not having been tested, the cinematographer shot everything off frame. When that was discovered, they inserted the red dye in an aquarium "death scene" from "Pirhana" and made do. There are shots of the ominous fin cruising cross-scene; you can see the wake of the outrigger canoe pulling it. There was a guy sitting inside the "fish" guiding it with a joystick; one afternoon he hit the reef, fell out the open side, and put his arm on a lionfish. VERY bad thing, the arm swelled to the size of his thighs and turned black but the Batangas Provincial hospital saved his life. Next day they moved him to a cheaper hospital! There was a lot more stuff, as you'd expect from a movie that opens with a pig intestine draped over someone's shoulders. I rated it 10 because as terrible movies go, it excels. It is so bad I think it deserves to be right down there with the Bush presidency. Chuck Griffiths and most of the actors in the film were great people. Chuck is far more talented than this movie allows him to show, and I'd like to visit with Suzanne Reed and Kedric Wolfe again some day, see how they've gotten along. Joe Cantrell

This is a nearly completely redone version of Jaws, of course. The monster gets a 1, pretty lame big rubber fish. The script a 2, too much really bad humor that's tried to be passed off as wit. The supporting cast a 3, some are okay some are not, and the boy and girl leads get a 4, they really are not bad and handled their parts in such a grade C film with respect. The nice scenery of a remote Hawaiian island gets a 5 and the all around neat 1970s mishmash decor gets a 7, and not higher because it wasn't planned but was just there to be used. I mean just look at that hotel, with a 1960s angular pointy diner roof and greco-roman columns holding it up!

Alright here I go. I saw the video box to this when I was VERY young in the mid eighties and wanted to rent it because it looked good and scary. But my parents would not let me! So fast forward a few years and I see the film Piranha. I see the finale and a shot from this finale is on the back of the vestron box of "Up from the Depths." So I begin to think I was making it up. That I had not seen a movie of this title. That Piranha WAS the movie I saw. Then I find out about a website called imdb.com and I look this title up. Sure enough I was NOT dreaming! I was actually so excited and went to the only Blockbuster in the state that carried this title about an hour away from my home just to finish the life's pursuit! I got home with intense anxiety, plopped the VHS in the VCR and... what? what is this? this isn't scary? why... how... And that is all that was there. This film is a pretty cheap knock off of Jaws and does not know it is! It deals with two stupid people who for some god unknown reason are spending time at the beach WHEN, they run into some(not so)dangerous trouble when a shark that is like, two feet long comes a shore and starts nib nib nibbling at the vacationers. I was so appauled that I, being a hard core film lover, had been thinking about this film all that time and wondering if I would ever see it! No wonder I could never find it one ago. In fact, in an article I read, the production was so in trouble that it began in Malta, which doubled for the Phillipines, which tripled for Hawaii. The list goes on and on. The scenes are so laughable. Like a scene which a supermodel gives gum to a fish, and she later is doing a nudie shoot on a boat that is attacked by the ugly duckling of a fish. The fish looks cardboard and makes a sound that could frighten a muse! What were the cast and crew thinking! However I would watch it if push came to shove because I am a hardcore Corman fan. But in all honesty and sincerety, stay away unless you really want to waste your money or it is on tv and you feel you just HAVE to see it. 1/10

Griffith, Corman's muse on masterpieces like "Little Shop of Horrors" and "Bucket of Blood", tries his hand at directing for a change at the behest of Cirio "Vampie Hookers" Santiago. Guess what, it's a Jaws ripoff, and it's set in Hawaii. Instead of Roy Scheider we get one rather gorgeous woman romping around and clashing with, not the corrupt mayor, but the fershlugginer resort manager, a mind-boggling, thrashing and mincing performance by some guy (Virgil Frye?) Every once in a while there are incomprehensible quick-cut sequences of crap happening underwater including this inflatable fish with Dorito teeth. The climax involves blowing the fish up by completing a circuit by reaching into the giant fish's mouth and connecting two wires. Just like in real life! Don't ask for an explanation. Stupid, yes, and amusing as such, but also kind of aggravating.

Up from the Depths, directed by Charles B. Griffith and "starring" Suzanne Reed and Sam Bottoms - alright I could put any names out there and would get the same recognition. This is one of Roger Corman's New World Picture rip-offs to exploit something that had been successful on screen. This time around we have a Jaws minus credible cast, story, special effects, etc... But this film never really tries taking itself too terribly seriously, and I found it much more in line with another Corman produced film called Piranha. Both films have just enough "comedy" in them to make them almost parodies of the killer fish genre films. Anyway, Up from the Depths is pretty bad. Its weakest point is a terrible script about some rubbery prehistoric fish that we never really get to see too closely attacking tourists at a tropical resort. The script just does not convey any real "threat" nor does it make us take any of the characters or situations all that seriously. Maybe, because the film tries hard at being funny that is why, but some menace is needed to make a film like this work. The actors are not very good either. Sam Bottoms? C'mon. The usual New World Picture format of needless(yet expressively photographed) nudity is here too. I have seen a lot worse films; however, then Up from the Depths. It is an entertaining "bad" film if nothing else. And as a former reviewer noted, this is one of those films that has an awesome poster - a poster that easily out-distances its film in terms of aesthetic quality.