The Rift

R. Lee Ermey is the only reason to watch this soggy underwater submarine sci-fi film. He has a starring role, and his presence for the mercifully short 79 minute running time helps maintain some interest. "Endless Descent" is loaded with the usual crisis of the minute clichés, and races along with little character development, and really makes little sense. The crew explores an underwater cave system, while being attacked by a nice assortment of evolutionary accelerated critters. Meanwhile a toxic plant specimen is overrunning the submarine. Throw in a traitor on board, and you pretty much have the plot, or lack thereof. Except for the presence of R. Lee Ermey, this is entirely forgettable nonsense. - MERK

Endless Descent (aka The Rift) is the afterbirth of 1989's underwater explosion of The Abyss, Leviathan, and Deepstar Six. Just as you expect from an apparent bandwagon jumper, it's not as good as those prior flicks. It also takes some time to get going. It has the feel of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea for the most part of the film (and the sub effects are just as hokey). It doesn't turn into a true B monster movie until they finally get out of the damned submarine. Then we get some giant killer seaweed, rubber mutants, and a nice head explosion. I might add that the head explosion was the highlight of the movie. Jack Scalia leads a cast of mostly unknowns and no one here shines. Even R. Lee Ermey and my man Ray Wise seem to be phoning it in. The director's other films include the horrible Pieces and the unwatchable Cthulhu Mansion. So viewer beware.

This film sucks on every level. Directing sucks, story sucks, actors suck, creatures suck, sets suck. It's just awful across the board. I didn't realize this film even existed and was the third underwater/monster movie of 1989 (Leviathan and Deep star 6 being the other two). The other two movies mentioned are like Citizen Kane compared to this one. Watch those two for a cheesy, but somewhat fun underwater monster movie. Dont watch this one...you'll never get that hour and half back in your life. It was free for me on Amazon, and i still want my money back.

If you like poor SE, (some) bad acting and a total lack of credibility, this is a movie for you. So a really cheap looking movie, but I liked it anyway. Why? Because I like those kind of movies. I can't help but smile when I see these kind of movies....... What were the producers, actors, director and SE people thinking when they made this film? Don't expect an "Abyss" or "Alien", just a (very) low-budget horror/adventure movie.

There is one nice "splatter"moment when a guy's head is shot off, but for the most, the horror is pretty tame. The final monster is pretty cool too.

It's only 73 minutes long, so you can t go wrong there. Maybe you can pick it up at your local videostore or watch it on TV. I'm sure you will have a good time watching it.

But don't say you weren't warned.............

I liked the film overall. OK, I admit the acting (except for Lee Ermey at the end) was uniformly bad. The idea of a land ledge deep down in the ocean was pretty neat. Sure there were stupid mistakes, but hey this is a movie. Look, late at night I prefer mindless monster movies. Another good thing was they didn't try to make Jack Scalia too much of a macho hero. And they didn't make too much romance. When you're facing unheard-of-before monsters who has time to say silly romantic lines we see in so many other movies? There was some smartness in the plot, although I would have liked some more genetics mumbo-jumbo. The starfish monster was pretty good. I'd give it 5/10.