Gods of the Deep

Imagine Prometheus combined with The Abyss and set in the H. P. Lovecraft universe of the Cthulhu mythos. Now make it with the budget of a few first year film students' pocket money and also their skill so far and you get Gods of the Deep.

You can't really blame these people, can you? What would you do if you had a dream, but had no idea how to make it happen? You experiment. You try to copy what you know, hoping that some original thought will make an appearance and propel you into your movie celebrity career. It doesn't matter that the actors you can afford can't act or that the sets you can afford are basically a cellar somewhere that you must make look like a submarine. What matters is to put something out there that is not completely crap. And, by the old gods, they succeeded. This is not crap!

On the other hand, it's not much better either. Everything in the film is derivative and the story is really really weak. Hint to future "experiments": first you write it, then you (and as many other people as you can find) read it and only if you like it and they like it do you continue with adapting it into a movie. Because somehow, probably determined by the success of such powerhouses of suck as Marvel, people have got it into their heads that movies and books are different and separate forms of art. No, they are just forms of medium for storytelling. The storytelling IS the art. And unfortunately here, they failed miserably.

And it was almost endearing to see how seriously the film was trying to promote itself because it was starring the famous Rowena Bentley. Only she was not famous. That was pretty funny.

Bottom line: if you consider this the first attempt in a series of incrementally improving projects, then it was a success. Kind of like Elon Musk's first exploding rockets. It promises the possibility of actual film making down the line. If this was their best effort, though... well, it kind of sucked.

A bumbling group of international goofballs dive to the bottom of the ocean in a corrugated tool shed held together with caution tape.

Yeah, this exists.

I don't think it is a parody but that it was actually made in complete earnest Roger Corman-style. So it has a bit of heart as a labor of love. A Lovecraftian labor at that.

And while the sets are very cheesy, the camera work (especially the lighting), the sound and the editing are all actually pretty professional. And most of the cast seems to have attended at least an acting class or two.

But the budget is infinitesimal. Distractingly so.

There is a plot. Of sorts.

Well, at least Tim and Joe are watchable.

The movie is a B movie with a very low budget. Nevertheless, it was somehow fun to watch until the winged creature showed up that cannot move but just trying to move his hand up. However the best scene is when they decided to smoke cigarette in a submarine that is under 37.000 feet. In fact they smoke it with passion. The scenario is basically a combination of Call of Cthulu of HP Lovecraft and the Aquaman so folks there is nothing new. The high votes to this movie were given rather by trolls who have so much time or people who are related to the production team. Do not waste your time and watch other staff such as The Abyss an oldie but goldie !

OK, the good. It looked like the actors tried to make this watchable. They didn't try too hard, but they tried. The camera work was also acceptable. Sorry, not much more to say good.

I wanted to like this movie, I really did. But as soon as they needed to show anything beyond scenes sitting in a conference room, the props, staging, and general direction were HORRIBLE.

The most obvious thing is the director was completely clueless. Anytime he was oblivious to what would actually happen in a situation he would shake the camera. And wow, the 'really cool, cutting edge' technology was SOO bad. To the point that the hatch to the submarine was a trash can lid! ... and it closed the wrong way!!! You make a movie about a submarine and you never saw a single submarine movie??? Do just a LITTLE homework.

I can write pages about how bad this movie was, but that might give the director hints on how to make his next movie better. Instead, I would strongly consider another line of work.

It's possible to make a decent low budget movie with this storyline. These filmmakers did not make a decent low budget movie, though. It's illogical, poorly-acted, and embarrassing. It repeatedly cuts to the same terrible animation in the hope that you don't notice it's exactly the same terrible animation you saw two minutes ago. The "god" in question doesn't do anything beyond shake its head around in a ridiculous fashion as you might expect from a filmmaker who's younger than 12. The craft appears to have been built out of corrugated iron and pipes. Amazingly, none of these world-class experts were bothered by the leak when they first set off. This isn't merely a low budget movie. It's an unintelligent movie.