The Deep Ones

Badly written, badly acted, you name it and its bad in this movie. At some point during the filming I feel like someone would have raised the point that this movie was on-fire garbage and that all production should be stopped and all work prints destroyed for the good of humanity. Nope.

If you have a toilet, watch it flush for an hour and a half and you will come away with the exact same experience as this awful, awful film.

I stumbled upon the 2020 movie adaptation of a classic H. P. Lovecraft tale titled "The Deep Ones" in 2021. I must admit that I was initially thrilled to find a movie such as this, but my hopes and expectations were immediately lowered, because many of the previous movie adaptations of Lovecraft's works have been dubious at best.

And the 2020 movie "The Deep Ones" from writer and director Chad Ferrin wasn't a movie to break the slump of less than mediocre movie adaptions of Lovecraft's stories. Sure, there were definitely Lovecraftian elements here and it was based on a Lovecraft story, but writer and director Chad Ferrin just didn't capture that essence that permeates all Lovecraft's writings, that particular sense of cosmic dread and sense of hopelessness.

Sure, the movie was watchable, but it just didn't capture the key element that defines the Cthulhu mythos. I managed to sit through "The Deep Ones", but I was hardly entertained, and I can in all honesty say that this is not a movie that I will be returning to watch a second time, nor is it a movie that I would recommend fans of Lovecraft's writing to rush out and get their hands on.

For me, "The Deep Ones" snuck in under the radar, and the movie will just as quietly and unnoticeably fade into oblivion for me. This wasn't a groundbreaking or defining moment in Lovecraftian movie adaptations.

The acting in the movie was actually good enough, and I do enjoy the fact that I am presented with a cast ensemble that I am not previously familiar with. It was just a real shame that the actors and actresses didn't have much of anything to work with here.

My rating of "The Deep Ones" lands on a shallow three out of ten stars. Not really an outstanding foray into the Cthulhu mythos.

It's hard to know whether to trust horror movies ratings because they're always skewed by joyless judgmental jerks who are like "oh my gawd, who would ever want to watch this type of garbage!" Well... lots of people. But 5/10 seems right, this is like mediocre low budget, like Hallmark channel quality (if they had Hallmark Horror.)

The acting for the most part is pretty bad. The blonde friend is great though. There were a few things I liked. There are a bunch of old tv references (Three's Company, Andy Griffith, I Love Lucy). One character gives off strong Mrs. Doubtfire vibes. And best of all, the central relationship reminded me a ton of Jesse and Darcey from 90 Day Fiancé: Before the 90 Days.

Worth a watch? Ehh... probably only if you are into low budget horror.

This could have been a mostly mediocre movie that killed the time but was never anything special. I liked the bones of the concept, and taking on a more female cosmic fear of being mother to monsters.

But the score irredeemably dropped by mixing up the mythos AND by having a book of Lovecraft stories in the movie without explanation. Like, was Lovecraft actually a prophet and all these people clued into the truth via his writings? And since I was already mad at that, I was cheesed off that it was very obviously from the public library, but on the old man's shelf as if it were a collectible.

The acting is bad, but about on par with cheesy horror. The script certainly doesn't do them any favors, and the directing is mostly boring but then tries way too hard. The pacing is awful, and the 'creepiness' is from some flailing tentacles and over-the-top 'bizazrre' reactions. The practical Deep One effects on the community members - of which there were not enough to be properly inspired by Shadow Over Innsmouth - looked like they came from Spirit Halloween.

So, what would have normally been a merely lame movie is kind of an insult to the Lovecraft genre. Maybe the writers should have done more than skimmed the Wiki about the mythos to get their ideas.

The plot was solid, in concept, so that earned it a couple stars. This in the spirit of Innsmouth by all rights. The rest, however? Think four digit budget during quarantine at your uncle's beach house. Bad acting, bad effects, bad production... but hey if you're a HPL fan or into bad horror movies check it out.