THE CREATURE BELOW (2016)

Studio:       Breaking Glass Pictures
Director:    Stewart Sparke
Writer:       Paul Butler, Stewart Sparke
Producer:  Paul Butler, Stewart Sparke
Stars:     Anna Dawson, Michaela Longden, Daniel S. Thrace, Johnny Vivash, Zach Lee, Libby Wattis, David Shackleton

Review Score:

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Summary:

A marine biologist descends into madness after encountering an ancient creature underwater.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Dr. Olive Crown, a marine biologist specializing in oceanic trenches, is enveloped by a giant creature while testing Dr. Fletcher’s experimental deep diving exosuit underwater. Dara rescues Olive before she drowns, but Dr. Fletcher angrily fires her for destroying the suit and scuttling their expedition.

Olive finds a strange egg embedded in the wrecked suit, sneaks it off Fletcher’s ship, and brings it back to the home she shares with boyfriend Matthew Gardiner. The egg hatches a small cephalopod creature that sprays Olive with black ink. Olive captures the creature and keeps it hidden in her basement.

Olive develops a maternal bond with the creature as her behavior begins changing too. Olive’s appetite becomes voracious and she grows more sensitive to light, just like the creature.

Olive shows the creature to Dara hoping he can help identify it. Olive insists that Dara not tell Dr. Fletcher about the discovery while she also keeps the creature hidden from Matthew.

While trying to figure out what the creature needs to survive, Olive learns it feeds on human blood. Olive’s visiting sister Ellie, as well as Matthew, notices that Olive is growing increasingly distant and irate.

Fletcher calls Olive with a threat to turn over the creature, revealing that Dara told him about the discovery. Fletcher comes to the house and tries taking the creature by force. Olive wounds Fletcher and allows the creature to feed on him.

Olive dumps Fletcher’s body in the sea. She then infiltrates Fletcher’s docked ship and finds files detailing the creature’s ancient origins. Olive leaves after setting the ship on fire.

Upset at Olive, Ellie investigates the basement, leading to a tense confrontation between the two sisters. However, the creature remains hidden.

Over dinner, Matt tells Olive about Mrs. Jones, an elderly patient at the hospice where he works who is mute and near death. Olive abducts Mrs. Jones and feeds her to the creature. Olive eats the black slime left behind by the monster.

Olive confronts Dara over what he told Fletcher. Olive then sacrifices Dara to her creature.

Matt loses his job because of Mrs. Jones’ disappearance. Ellie consoles him and the two of them become intimate. Olive discovers them in the act, knocking Matt unconscious and restraining Ellie in the basement. The creature emerges while Olive’s eyes bleed a black substance.

Matt recovers. Olive pushes Matt down the staircase into the basement and the creature kills him.

Olive is driven to draw images of the creature and its ancient race. She explains to her sister that the creature is a god that she commands. Olive allows the creature to wrap its tentacles around her, but it crushes her to death, bursting her body into pieces.

Ellie escapes her restraints, but is unable to confront the creature. Responding to the commotion, next-door neighbor Herbert enters and inadvertently frightens the creature away with a bright flashlight. Ellie is rescued.

Police investigate the crime scene, though they find no sign of the creature, suspecting it may have escaped in a storm drain.

In a mental hospital some time later, Ellie watches a news report about marine life dying and massive floods drowning much of North England in water. Ellie escapes the facility and drives to the beach where she is horrified to find numerous creature eggs washing ashore. In the distance, a giant monster rises from the water.

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Review:

Dr. Olive Crown, a marine biologist specializing in oceanic trenches, is submerged deep in the sea to test a driven doctor’s experimental exosuit.  An enormous creature unlike anything catalogued by science suddenly envelops Olive, simultaneously terrorizing and entrancing her as she is nearly crushed by the beast’s powerful tentacles.

Olive survives.  The suit doesn’t.  Olive says nothing of what she saw in the water, keeping lips sealed even tighter when she discovers an egg came back lodged in her oxygen tank too.

Olive takes the egg home to the house shared with her boyfriend Matt.  There, the egg births a small cephalopod whose ink attack entrances Olive once more.  Maternally bonded to the beast because of these experiences, Olive undergoes unfathomable changes altering her mind as well as her body.  Olive has unknowingly enslaved herself to an ancient race, and her creature is the key to these Elder Gods rising once again.

The literary works of H.P. Lovecraft have had incalculable influence on horror fiction, though I think there are two reasons why we don’t see more of his stories and style adapted to film.  The first is that Lovecraft’s kaiju-sized creatures with sanity-shattering visages are too grotesquely grandiose to convincingly create onscreen without a multimillion-dollar budget.  The second is that Lovecraft’s predominantly first-person prose is so steeped in intangible dreamscapes that it doesn’t translate smoothly into live-action energy.

Personally, I’m such a fan of Lovecraft’s mythos that any attempt at a Cthulhu-inspired movie automatically earns my attention.  And when a well-meaning indie without the money to overcome that first hurdle, and not necessarily enough story substance to overcome the second, takes aim and fires its best shot anyway, I’m inclined to award some credit for executing on undeterred ambition alone.

Such is the case with “The Creature Below.”  While its digitally-enhanced shots are to CGI what a stick figure flipbook is to animation, the movie’s deep desire to evoke Lovecraftian over and undertones pokes through despite relying on shoestring special effects.  And even though its portrait of one woman’s unraveling doesn’t create an avenue for a rapid-fire pace, intrigue pulsates in the atmosphere that pushes “The Creature Below” above passable for a DTV horror film.

Acting doesn’t shake the earth like a Deep One rising from the depths or anything, although it is above board considering how little the script contributes to characterizations.  Olive’s sister Ellie goes from supporting player to important person in the third act for example, yet the only personality development she has prior to this point is as a predictable corner in a love triangle involving her sister’s boyfriend.

“The Creature Below” could be bolstered by a substantial subplot or two.  But these soap opera clichés aren’t solid enough for patching those holes.

When teeth aren’t grinding at animated enhancements of boats in backgrounds or other beast appendages, the movie makes do with suitably slimy practical props.  Combined with a score echoing the synth styling of “Prince of Darkness,” there is a VHS vibe lurking about that gives everything a throwback terror tinge without being in your face about any 1980s-ness.

That vibe is where the movie is often effective.  “The Creature Below” is built on a lot of silent staring accentuated by subtle music and cerebral swaths meant to illustrate Olive’s psychological descent.  That only affords bark as a bare-fanged, traditionally thrilling creature feature, though the movie retains its bite as a low-budget Lovecraft suspense piece.

If you can get past the choppy CGI, which is somewhere south of that used in SyFy and The Asylum’s most slapdash collaborations, and get into the slowly smoldering mood, which may be a higher hurdle for some, “The Creature Below” can be oddly intoxicating.  It’s a small-scale production confined to a single location for a large part of its duration, with only a half-dozen essential speaking parts.  Yet its tone is mostly on the mark to get the most bang from what little ammo it is afforded by that arsenal.

Review Score:  65

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