So now I need a survival horror film with Sigourney Weaver AND Kristen Stewart

[spindizzy]

Hey everyone! Lex, Mike, and I went to see Underwater, which was sold to me as "Aliens but underwater and with Kristen Stewart playing the Ripley" and I kinda loved it. We accidentally ended up in the subtitled showing, and I swear to god why don't all screenings come with subtitles, that was an INFINITELY easier viewing experience.

• On the one hand, Norah and Emily being in their underwear feels like it should be a male gaze thing, but on the other Smith is also in his underwear and it doesn't seem to be shot like that? Despite all of the scenes of Norah in her underwear, I mean. Also real talk her bra looked so COMFY rather than sexy, so I'm kinda looking at this like "You let a woman do the costume design here, didn't you?" (I WANT THAT BRA.)


• (How do jeans not fit into the mechs, but Smith's sweatshirt and Paul's rabbit do?)


• I don't know if there was supposed to be a version of this that had more of the questioning of reality stuff that the film started with, but that WOULD explain the voice-overs about unreality and the spider in the sink (BECAUSE EVEN SEVEN MILES BELOW THE SEA YOU'RE NOT SAFE). I'm fine with them not taking that road! I'd much rather everyone just accept that they're being attacked by weird sea monsters and move on!


• Norah putting her hand out to feel the water drops: oh no. It's just such a perfect, reasonable thing to do that's made horrifying by the scale of the problem and I love it.


• For some reason, I automatically expected her to go back for her shoes! And that's a very silly thing for my brain to latch onto, but I was SO WORRIED about her running through this life-threatening situation with no shoes! FOR NO REASON!


• Norah trying to wake everyone up and get them to evacuate is such a characterful thing.


• Norah and Rodrigo trying to close the bulkheads and not leave people to die and oh noooooooo. Especially because they're both like "This isn't my skill set, guess we're gonna do what we can!"


• I keep forgetting that I'm scared of being buried alive until I watch things like this. Weirdly, it wasn't Paul being literally trapped under the rubble that got me, it was them crawling through the very narrow passage.


• Norah freaking out about moving the dead lady's hand out of the way is the reaction I was having watching it.


• Captain Lucien shoving twenty-two people into life pods and waiting for any other survivors! And Norah just being like "WE WOULD ALL DECK YOU AND PUT YOU INTO AN ESCAPE POD."


• (I assume that the reason the escape pods only hold one person is to stop people trying to wait for anyone else or leaving in a mostly empty pod?


• Trope that I was hoping had died by now: Black guy died first. In a preventable way as well, because they scavenged suits together and he took one that was broken! RODRIGO DESERVED BETTER.


• My predicted guess at the order of death was Rodrigo, Paul, Smith, the Captain, Paul (because the sex pest either dies second or lasts until quite near the end), then Emily. I didn't put Norah on the list because y'know protagonist! Protagonist has to be the Final Girl! ... Nope, I was wrong. In my defence, I got the order mostly correct apart from not realising that Smith and Emily would live!


• IT WAS SO TENSE, BY THE WAY. LIKE, GENUINELY CREEPY TENSE. There are a fair amount of jump scares - some of which actually got me, the bastards - but it does the waiting for the inevitable horrible thing really well!


• Emily trying to talk about normal things like dogs and not dying under the ocean while terrible things go on around them is very sweet of her.


• But also OH MY GOD PAUL YOU IDIOT DO NOT POKE THE FLESH-EATING MONSTERS


• Paul telling Rodrigo's favourite joke was a really nice touch, actually.


• The fact that they're running from monsters WHILE THE UNDERWATER BASE THEY'VE BEEN LIVING IN COLLAPSES ON TOP OF THEM is a constant stream of aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaugh. Especially when they find out that the monsters are already in the place they're running to.


• (We did all see the captain dismiss the old station as an option and immediately go "Oh cool, they'll end up there at some point," right?)


• (THE CAPTAIN LEFT THE MEMORIAL CARD FOR HIS DAUGHTER IN THAT STATION. LIKE, THAT PLACE LOOKS LIKE THEY DIDN'T EVEN BOTHER TO PACK BEFORE THEY LEFT SO WHAT WAS HAPPENING THERE AND WHY WAS THAT WHERE HE LEFT HIS MEMENTO OF HER?)


• IT RIPPED PAUL RIGHT OUT OF HIS MECH SUIT OH MY FUCKING GOD WHAT


• I have no idea what was happening in that very muddled scene where he's somehow snagged on something, but also: NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE.


• The section where Captain Lucien and Norah are separated from the others, tangled up in a random bit of debris, and definitely being hunted by a monster they can't keep track of is fucking terrifying.


• I wonder how much of Lucien's feelings about Norah are summed up in that "Wait, I thought [your daughter] was my age?"


• I'd like to take this moment to remind everyone that Norah is doing most of the action sequences WITHOUT HER GLASSES, and as she appears to be short-sighted: THAT MUST BE TERRIFYING. Everything is a creepy nightmarish blur because your glasses came off, AND there are fish monsters who move fast enough to be creepy nightmarish blurs anyway!


• Emily dragging Smith across half the ocean because it's that or lie down and die: ;_____________________________;


• My immediate reaction to Norah's tragic backstory is "Wait, this is a big thing that informs her whole character, where did this come from?" and then had to have a fridge-logic moment while I reviewed the entire film in my head to scan for clues. Like, it's there! Not just in the photograph and the locket, but also in her insistence that they need to bring something back for the families of the people they find! And I just... Apparently forgot all of that when the explanation came. I still feel like it could have done with a bit more play than it got, especially considering the ending, but I guess it works?


• Well that's some cosmic horror there, whoops.


• I like that we never find out what the fuck was going on with those fishmen. We have speculation, we have suggestions, but no one KNOWS. Just that a giant lovecraftian horror has emerged and has fishmen living on it. I think there was a red-string-conspiracy map in the abandoned base? But I'm not sure!


• The part where they're walking towards the door and realise how many sleeping fishmen are there? AUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGH!


• I knew it was gonna go horribly and it was still SO TENSE.


• IN 2020S SURVIVAL HORROR, CHESTBURSTER IS YOU.


• The moment the flare goes off and you see the scale of the cthulean monstrosity in the background? NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE


• EMILY CAME BACK FOR HER WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH SHE IS SO GOOD


• Norah sprinting for the escape pods and having the bulkheads come down in front of her every time: oh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.


• OF COURSE there aren't enough pods. OF COURSE. And of COURSE the damn things only hold one person and have a design that means there's lots of space but nowhere to put another person. OF COURSE.


• The fact that they load Smith into a pod with Little Paul is really sweet.


• Norah, honey, angel, PLEASE STOP TRYING TO HEROICALLY SACRIFICE YOURSELF.


• I mean, she's gonna. She punched Emily in the face and everything to make it official, even though Emily was trying to insist that they could fix the pod together! She cited her dead fiancé! She is DEFINITELY going to sacrifice herself!


• The Big Daddy of Fishmen apparently understands that there are living things in the escape pods, which raises questions as to what happened to all the people who did make it to the escape pods.


• The map showing the mass of fishpeople swarming up towards the escape pods: auuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh but also cool!


• I feel like the process for setting off a bomb the size of an underwater drilling base should be maybe a LITTLE trickier.


• Her FACE at the end there! The satisfaction! I hate stories that end in self-sacrifice, but I think that moment really worked for her and looked INCREDIBLE.


• There is probably a really smart point to be made here in comparing Aliens and Underwater and what they could be metaphors for, but I am not the person to make it. I've got as far as "So Aliens is a metaphor for rape and coerced pregnancy because of capitalistic lack of care about human life, Underwater is a metaphor for climate change because of capitalistic lack of care about anything but ESPECIALLY human life," and that's as far as I've got. Or "Alien is all about things trying to get inside you and Underwater is all about things trying to get you outside," and that is not an essay topic.


• "So let's light this fucker up."