Deep Rising is by far one of the most entertaining creature features Hollywood has pumped out in years. The obscene amount of gore, super hot Famke Janssen, Treat Williams' best performance of all time, and a great creature design is only the beginning. Taking place almost entirely on a humungous cruise ship, this all out action/sci-fier is cetainly derivative of countless other movies, but none of them do it any better. The tentacles of the massive beast take out literally hundereds (if not thousands) of people before the credits roll, all to feed the mass of flesh which has ripped it's way into the center of the ship. A must for either action or sci-fi fans.
The DVD presents the film as it should, a gorgeous widescreen print with few (if any) flaws. The only real problem is that the crystal clear picture makes the low budget CGI that permiates most of the film even more obvious. Black levels are solid and only some minor color bleeding mar an otherwise perfect print. As if the picture wasn't enough, the 5.1 mix included here is simply unheard of. Since the monster can pretty much go anywhere aboard the liner, viewers (well, listeners in this case) are treated to some stunning surround usage. The LFE channel gets a workout thanks to the insane amount of gunfire and explosions. I've put this disc in many a time simply to hear it. Very few standard 5.1 mixes are better than the one included here.
As is the norm for a underappreciated sci-fi movie, the disc is barren, minus a few trailers. Any home theater enthusiast should still have this disc in their collections, even if they hate the movie. The picture and sound quality combined with what is bound to be a cult classic horror flick make this a worthy disc to any collection.
Originally posted at Breaking Windows.
Article comments
1 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
It's hard to imagine how Stephen Sommers ended up at Van Helsing after watching Deep Rising. Perhaps the charm of the film lies in the fact that it was so restricted as far as budget goes. When he got the dollars to make the mummy and the mummy returns, sommers seemingly took the chance to go for spectacle over anything else. Which is not to say his CGI Monster Flicks weren't a lot of fun, but there was a b-movie charm to deep rising that his later, more expensive films failed to rekindle.
2 - Matt Paprocki
Wait, I'm confused. Did you like Deep Rising or not??
3 - Aaron, Duke De Mondo
Yeah, i thought it was a lot of fun. I enjoy Sommers later films too, but i think Deep Rising had a touch more charm to it than, say, The Mummy. Deep Rising is enjoyably daft, and it concentrates on stuff like atmosphere and fun, whereas his later work seemed to prefer just making sure there were plenty of pixles onscreen