Creatures from the Abyss (1994) – Movie Review

Creatures from the Abyss (1994)
(aka, Plankton)

This monster flick would even make Roger Corman smile. It solves the age old dilemma of B horror films – when we have a scientist create a man-eating monster, how do we keep the woman characters clad in bikinis for the entire movie? Answer: we put the scientist’s lab on a boat! Genius! (leave it to the Italians.) Five young partiers get stranded in their dingy and climb creatures from the abyss cover aboard a deserted ship. The boat’s motors don’t work but everything else does, lights, stereo, computerized showers that talk to you. They discover that some scientist was working on resurrecting an ancient fish, one ugly SOB if I’ve ever seen one.

Confused by the whole scene, what does this group of revelers do? They party like there’s no tomorrow – for most of them there won’t be a tomorrow. So, it’s spring-break/girls gone wild! The fish/alien/whatever it is, is also a parasite and can take over a human body. There’s a nasty sex scene where the aroused parasite-fish comes out of the guy, ala The Thing. The dialogue is laughable, almost as funny as the plot. Oh, did I say plot? If you’re looking for a plot, good luck.

In the end, the man-monster finally attacks; a half-human, half-fish, half-octopus with tentacles – a stop-motion clay-mation, B-monster mess, but I love it. The two survivors lock the monster fish-man in the lab, then set the boat ablaze. Roll credits. It’s a fun, campy, monster movie, not made to be taken too seriously. It’s so cheesy, you could swear it was made in the 1980’s.