The Thing Below Movie
Storyline
TAGLINES
Fear is Rising.
The abundance of the ocean-lurking creatures always gives grounds to the variety of terrific tales and stories. In this undersea horror suspense by Jay Andrews a research team is sent to the distant oil rig after the SOS signal was received. Arrived on the rig, the researchers found it completely empty, with no soul aboard; there were almost no trace of life. As Captain Jack Griffin (Billy Warlock) and Professor Anna Davis (Catherine Lough Haggquist) proceed into the depths of the underwater constructions, accompanied by their fellow team, they begin to loose people in the desperate attempts to find out what has happened to the oil rig crew. To mention, sharks and spurts are not the most terrible sea creatures...
| Billy Warlock | Capt. Jack Griffin |
| Kurt Max Runte | Crank Wowchowski |
| Catherine Lough Haggquist | Anna Davis |
| Peter Graham-Gaudreau | Dean Rieser |
| Warren Christie | Cassidy |
| Kiara Hunter | Mel Rogers |
| David Richmond-Peck | Bobby Gibbons |
| Colin Lawrence | Dixon |
| Jim Thorburn | Cole Griffin |
| Craig Bruhnanski | Captain Mark Stewart |
| John Reardon | 1st Officer Taylor |
| Ari Solomon | Prouty |
| Julie Hill | Prof. Glenda Marshall |
| Ken Kramer | Dr. Edgar Pretorious |
| Darryl Scheelar | Peters |
| Jim Wynorski |
2.20 out of 10 (252 votes)
Visitor Reviews
Nothing below
posted on 06 Jul 2009*SPOILER ALERT* *SPOILER ALERT* "The Thing Below" is a completely unnecessary movie. I didn't need to see it and no one needed to spend two seconds making it. In fact, I would dare say that no one should have even thought about making it. I rented it expecting a cheap "Deep Rising" rip-off. It's a sad day when your movie watching hopes are dashed because they weren't low enough. I thought mine couldn't possibly get any lower. A "Deep Rising" rip-off was asking too much? Yes. Yes it was."The Thing Below" starts off with the usual B-movie scientists doing stupid things in an isolated setting. This time they're on an oil rig and let loose The Thing Below. A cargo ship arrives to check out the situation. Then the movie spins off into oblivion as the monster is not a beast with fangs, tentacles and other cool monster appendages but some sorry telepathic creature that can read your mind and exploit your fears, hopes, dreams etc. This leads to a scene where the monster turns into Glori-Anne Gilbert so it can do a strip tease for one of the crew members and another scene where there's an Old West style shootout (?!). I'm sure once the filmmakers saw the quality of their monster special effects, (terrible, awful, etc), they decided to take the telepathic creature route. It didn't really matter which monster they chose because there's no suspense, no thrills and pretty much nothing below. Well, nothing worth getting excited about that's for sure. Any way you look at it, this movie needs to be tossed away and forgotten.
Don't waste your time.
posted on 06 Jul 2009This film's plot is a rehash of Alien. Only here the evil critter is not found in outer space but fifteen miles under the Earth. Of course the US Government wants this thing, and wants to keep it hush hush, God knows why. Of course it gets loose on the oil platform where it was pulled out of the ground from and mayhem ensues.One of the many problems is, the group of characters boarding the oil rig is straight out of the movie cliché handbook. The haunted leader, the bald black man, the inexplicable hot blonde chick, and the eccentric guy, who in this case thinks he's Butch Cassidy (including hat and six shooter).Another is, this was made in Canada and many of the actors portraying Americans speak with a Doug and Bob MacKenzie accent, kinda weird eh? On the plus side, there is a far too long strip tease sequence performed by what looked to be an up and coming porn star (this accounts for my second star).They obviously had some money to spend but the lousy acting, hokey cartoon alien and woeful, annoying "on the nose" dialogue drag this thing deeper than the underwater tomb their monster allegedly came from.
Laughably bad - Danger Will Robinson!!!
posted on 30 Jun 2009Can I give less than one star? LOL Oh man, this may be the worst off-the-shelf (OTS) horror video ever made. From the lame costumes (they can't even get U.S. Navy uniforms right!), to the cookie-cutter dialog and characters, to the absolutely atrocious CGI (check out the digital octopus attack scene in the first 10 minutes - it is hysterical), this one is definately going in the "Worst Of" Hall of Shame, if I can just find a Hall of Shame what will accept it. It was so bad I was laughing up until the first 15 minutes were up, then I just couldn't take any more. Trust me, I try very hard to find GOOD OTS horror flicks (see my Listmania list for ones I'd recommend), and sometimes I just have to eat the rental cost and suffer through the bad ones... oh well, perhaps this review will save you the same pain (don't let the admittedly intriguing DVD cover art fool you).
Just by way of background, and while other reviewers seems to prefer to reveal much of the story and plot, I think that sort of ruins the film in many cases. So, you'll want to look for other reviews and reviewers if that is what you are looking for...
Please let me die!
posted on 31 May 2009There are no words to describe the absolute misery that this movie will subject you to. Before its end, you too would gladly welcome death.The plot is awful. The CGI looks like it was hand-drawn onto the frames in production. The beginning credits attempt to be creative but butcher the intro. The same footage is shown over and over again, and most of it looks like it came from a 1980's 8bit video game.What's worse is the insulting attempt to cover up how awful this film is by including a few busty women. If that's all you want from a movie, then you'll find it here. Just don't expect to be entertained.If you're considering watching this movie, please don't throw away your life like that. Your time will be much better spent by watching that horrible Ewok movie that Lucas put out in '84. You deserve better than this.
Would've been fine with an imposing monster
posted on 11 May 2009"The Thing Below" is a really weak creature feature with a few good moments about it.**SPOILERS**After disappearing in a colossal storm, a rescue team, lead by Capt. Jack Griffin, (Billy Warlock) and his staff Crank Wowchowski, (Kurt Max Runte) Anna Davis, (Catherine Lough Haggquist) Dixon, (Colin Lawrence) Cassidy, (Warren Christie) Mel Rodgers, (Kiara Hunter) and Bobby Gibbons, (David Richmond-Peck) are accompanied by Dean Rieser, (Peter Graham-Gaudreau) to find and retrieve it's cargo. Arriving at their oil rig destination, they find it abandoned and completely trashed despite experiments all throughout the floors. Finding the rest of the facility in the same shape, they discover that a drilling operation to remove a meteorite from around the Earth's core had actually contained an alien creature, and it has the ability to telepathically read victim's thoughts to lay a trap for them. With the team dwindling down, they race against to time to stop the creature from escaping the rig before they all it kills them all.The Good News: This film has a couple of things going for it. One of the biggest factors is it's really high body count, which is made up of several huge massacres in the film. From the opening wipe-out of an entire ship, along with another one later on and the ensuing massacre of the ship of the characters, this has a pretty big kill count. We also get a couple of really good ones as well, including a tentacle impaling a victim in the stomach and coming out the mouth, a tentacle wrapped around the head and crushing it, being completely covered in tentacles, and the best, where a victim is swarmed by the tentacles, enough to appear later as having his lower half below the waist appear to be a writhing mass of tentacles. When the creature begins to use illusions to get to it's prey, this shows off the main part of the movie that shows any energy, where one woman starts to strip and do a dance while fire goes off around her. Using oil as well, it's quite exotic and manages to become incredibly memorable. This also has a couple of really great suspense scenes, including an outstanding sequence where a team member is taunted by off-screen noises inside a dim hallway. As he's concentrating on another task, the voices keep being heard, and when turning around to check them, only a dark hallway with an ethereal fog off in the distance. As the voices continue, it leads a very big suspense scene to the film. It does have a few good moments in it.The Bad News: This is one of the most lackluster creature features ever. One of the biggest issues is with the titular creature. We're told multiple times that it's so radioactive it exerts one hundred times the radiation needed to kill a man, yet nothing ever comes of it other than lip service. Despite the fact that it's mentioned three or four times in the film, it never, ever, ever comes into play. This is shown in the one instance where it automatically throws it out the window. What's the natural step to take in order to get it to whatever secret government facility it needs to wind up at? Yeah, just as you thought, they picked a ship. Naturally the crew encounters rough ocean waters, and when the scientists aboard the ship decide to move the glass-encased specimen, they drop it. Instead of them all dying of radiation poisoning, they are all attacked by the creature, right after it was mentioned that the creature was radioactive. It's quite weird why that would be so. One of the film's other big problems is that it's a quite confusing most of the time. It's funny how these characters don't find it the least bit strange that these things materialize aboard a deserted drilling platform in the middle of the ocean. None of them act as it's quite strange to see the creature illusions and react to them with an air of lust. This is quite distressing to see. Of course, the creature's actions are no better. It can read minds to create it's illusions, but it can only do that from close range. And the only reason it creates illusions is so it can kill. So if it's close enough to kill in the first place without the illusions, why doesn't it just do that? This is quite unexplainable and hard to believe. Even harder to understand is the change of the creature. When we first see it, it's a small, snake-like tentacle. Later on, it's a whole bunch of tentacles. Much later, we see a character attacked by something resembling an insectoid octopus. After that, it's back to being a tentacle again. By the film's climax, it's a whole bunch of giant tentacles. So what exactly is this thing? An alien tentacle? A bunch of alien tentacles? Is it just an appendage of a larger creature or is it just a psychic alien tentacle? How does it keep multiplying and changing size throughout the movie? None of them are explained or hinted at, and it's quite frustrating, as all are possible. It's most grievous sin is that it might be the worst looking CGI possible. There's no way to describe how bad this looks, and it might inspire fits of laughter when viewed. These all conspire to knock this film down.The Final Verdict: While it's not all that bad, it's still not one of the greatest creature features ever made. It's got too many problems and has only a few good parts to really be of interest to those who love the cheesy creature features it's playing off of or in the mood for a bad movie marathon.Rated R: Graphic Language, Violence and Nudity
wow bad bad film
posted on 16 Feb 2009Hi well how to start this review 1st of all this film is called Ghost Rig 2 here in the UK and has different box art work. Now for the Reviw which contains spoilers but not many. This film was bad and I mean real bad the CGI if you can call it that was the lowest of the low below play station 1 level. I think that they must have given the computer to there dog to do the work for them because there was no effort put in at all to make the effects look real. A lot of the film is made up of stock footage from other movies (virus take a bow) and a lot of stock footage of aircraft-carriers and ships but strangely they could not shoot any footage of an oil rig or find any stock footage so we have sum more very bad CGI ( you would think that a film called ghost rig would actuality have a real oil rig in it wouldn't you. Anyway the film is about sum nasty men in black types and scientists bringing up a old life form from the bottom of the sea (not seen) and guess what it gets free and kills every one. All your stock characters are here black man goes of on his own dead, Man shows every one a picture of his wife and kids back home dead, bad man in black type double crosses every one dead and so on. And less that is said about the cowboy and how he gets it the better. yes I know a cowboy in a monster on the loose on a oil rig movie. So what more can be said other than billy warlock should really get A new agent the CGI guys need to be fired the Director should stop wasting money making movies this bad. So please only watch this movie if you like very badly made films that have no good ideas of there own and steal from much better film PS don't watch this 1 star.
Just Plain Lousy
posted on 04 Feb 2009Thank God it was only a rental. First off the acting was just horrible. The plot is the overused "alien in a meteor wants to kill everybody" story that just makes me think that no one put any real effort into making a halfway decent movie. The obligatory nudity comes in the form of a 5 minute strip act. This was probably added to take the viewers mind off what they were watching for a few minutes. But I would have rather have the movie be that much shorter.But the worst part is (as always) the monster itself. The current trend of movies being filled with CGI is a good thing if it's done right. Here it's done very wrong. The Monster CGI is atrocious. Simply put: Nintendo games have more convincing monsters. There's a scene near the end where a tentacle come out of a person's mouth to strangle another victim. The animation was not even lined up with the film properly.Do yourself a favor and don't even bother with this movie.
Bad movie!
posted on 24 Dec 2008Not the worst movie I've ever seen, but in the top 10. Acting was not very believable and character development left me wondering "who cares"? To many cliché stereotypes...evil government men, unemotional doctor, some sort of sibling rivalry (I think), etc. I actually fast-forwarded thru several scenes just to get on with it. The sets and props were low budget and I think in one scene, the camera actually showed an adjoining set as it panned to view the actors. I think the producers threw in some 'sexual content' just because they needed a hook or kill some movie time. The plot could have been interesting, but the way the story line developed with the uninteresting characters, watching it was like slogging knee-deep thru a swamp.
Worse than I expected
posted on 18 Dec 2008I like "creature" flicks - even the bad ones - so had high hopes this movie would be at least entertaining. It wasn't. Much of the movie makes no sense (the creature can read minds and yet apparently can't?) and the rest of it was just a jumble of weird bizarre images that didn't gel. Do yourself a favor - watch Lake Placid and pass on this one.
The Thing Below
posted on 06 Nov 2008A creature, found inside a meteor that was buried deep near the earth's core as an oil rig was digging for a new energy source, escapes from a canister housing it. It's tentacles spring forth to enter the victim's body erasing their identity and taking control. The thing can also telepathically read your thoughts if an individual gets too close causing hallucinations as a means of drawing victims near. It's up to Capt. Jack Griffin(soap opera vet Billy Warlock)and his minor ship crew to find out if anyone on the oil rig is still alive and can inform them on how to stop the alien force before it consumes everyone.Clichéd flick is your basic rip-off of John Carpenter's THE THING and INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. This perhaps could've been more fun if Jim Wynorski had found a good make-up effects designer instead of opting to go with the horrible, putrid computer effects instead(they are so cartoonish they elicit laughter instead of terror). As a creature feature this film flunks because it doesn't have an original bone in it's body or a creative leg to stand on. Warlock is fun as the hero, but the other characters are rather boring. Destined to find it's true home on the Sci-fi Channel where these kind of dreadful flicks, with terrible cheap effects, can live and breathe.
God awful
posted on 01 Jun 2008That was by far the worst movie I have ever seen. The movie was like watching one of the super old sci-fi movies. The "special" effects sucked....Come on we're in the 21st century; get a grip on technology and stop being a cheap @** ! Plus the ending??? I mean what the hell, why would she turn into the gov't guy. Why is he so important. Honestly, I've heard of irony, but she had no reason to turn into him.. and if she/he was the creature why didn't it kill the brothers! They had the disk (to which nothing was revealed of importance) and they blew the damn thing up. Writers today NEED TO CONSIDER COLLEGE!!!!! Then with all the military action to make sure it was destroyed you never actually seen anything being done by the marines..Totally counter acts the beginning of the film.
Rent something else. Change the channel.
posted on 06 May 2008This movie and its twin Deep Evil (2004) (TV) are painful to watch.I won't go into too much detail or reiterate what others have written. I did watch the whole thing but my excuse is that I was watching this in the background while on the computer.I kept on having deja vu while this played and I just could not put my finger on it - cheesy CGI, less than enthusiastic acting, and some other details.The overall idea, some of the effects, scenery, bio-hazard outfits, black eyeballs, and "lumpy" skin all looked too familiar - I looked up the cast and crew for this movie and Ah ha! I had seen Deep Evil (2004) recently. They share so much: plot, effects, and one of the writers. Who knows maybe some of the footage got mixed up on the cutting room floor? Don't bother with the movie. Watch paint dry. (Or watch both movies and compare, for fun!)
pure crap
posted on 22 Feb 2008**Spoilers ahead** This movie is retarded, the actors, director, and whoever did the special effects should be sent to a desert island forever. They throw in a nude scene with a porn star throwing her gigantic breasts around and pouring oil on herself in a room full of fire. This is probably where all the budget for the special effects went. The awful acting, pathetic CGI and the stupid storyline make this the worst waste of 94 minutes ever.But the movie is a lot of fun if you like to make fun of movies mystery science theater style.Anyone who gave this movie more than 1 star is too generous. Run and hide.
Crappy movie but somewhat good
posted on 02 Feb 2008Nothing really special, scientists on a secret oil rig find a creature in the centre of the earth. A family member of mine thought she saw this at first because the beginning wasn't anything different than so many other movies of this genre.Completely unoriginal tentacle monster creature, with crappy 3D effects on the tentacles.Some plot errors I noticed. Considering supposedly this creature can create hallucinations based on what you want to see, why was it that that girl and old guy (I forgot their names, don't care to remember) were together and he could see her hallucination? Then all of a sudden HE'S THE ONE WHO INFECTS HER? That was weird, considering it didn't go after him in the first place. What happened when that guy like pulled him out of the hallucination where that other guy with the disk was being attacked by the monster (not to mention his voice was funny even though he was not yet infected).As well, it was pretty funny when I'm sure it wasn't intended to be the main source of "humour" in this movie. The scene with the cowboy was funny in a "why is this here? it doesn't even belong". The striptease scene was pure fan service. (Not that that is a bad thing, but really, it was just to keep the audience interested in such a dull film).The whole concept of a creature that have you hallucinations into deceiving others of your team into being infested is a good concept, too bad it was executed so poorly.The ending was crap, in fact, it didn't give any originality and looked as if the director just pulled a Generic Action/Adventure Movie Ending from the Hat. So they throw a bunch of explosives down the elevator (why would there even be a self-destruct device in a government research lab?) and then that explosion blows up the rig and creature with it, while they jump 30 metres into the cold water and hope to be rescued? Not to mention that kind of jump could break some bones in the process. So then they're on a ship, getting back to land, and all of a sudden the women who lost her husband (terrible acting on behalf when he was killed, I should note) turns into that other guy and is actually the monster! At first I thought there could be a sequel (please don't) and then I realized this movie probably bombed in theatres and I doubt the studio wants to make a sequel (of what, the creature invading a large American city like Boston and having a team of people try and kill it (hmm, sound familiar to this movie?) and finally killing it. Leaving you to think "What was the point of watching both of these movies" when they could have killed movie, instead of having to make another one that just has a different setting but the ending is slightly different.Though I didn't see the first 20 minutes of this movie (It was aired on SPACE as 'Sea Ghost') I know I didn't miss anything that even a moron could get from watching the rest of the movie.Overall, I would still recommend this movie if you want to laugh at its errors and mistakes. I enjoy these types of mock B-movies, love how nothing fits and they just throw bits and pieces in and call it a movie.
ohhhhhhhhhhhhh
posted on 23 Oct 2007The ONLY redemptive feature of this beyond horrible movie is that Billy Warlock is in it. It is sad to see that talented soap actor reduced to doing movies like "The Thing Below". The acting is terrible and the script and direction are laughable. The characters are fake and boring. The CGI effects are beyond laughable. This has to be the most ridiculous movie I've ever seen. I can honestly say that I am traumatized by this movie. Even the talented Billy Warlock can't save this sinking ship. This movie doesn't even deserve one star but I'm giving it two only because Billy Warlock is in it. This movie makes those bad soap operas that he is in look great. He deserves so much better.
Worst movie ever seen
posted on 13 Sep 2007I've seen many movies in my lifetime and I can honestly say, without question, that this is the worst movie ever produced. The CGI and the entire plot is a joke. The only reason to watch this movie is for a strip-tease scene which was only a few minutes. Please, do yourself a favor and do not waste a minute watching this movie. Do not be fooled by the DVD cover! I honestly believe that they spent more time making an interesting looking cover than the movie. I am sufficiently upset I wasted money renting this :(
worst use of CGI that I ever witnessed
posted on 07 Jun 2007a drilling platform off the Gulf of Mexico raises the worst, most incompetent CGI sea creature that you're likely ever to see from deep under the ground. It breaks free of the containment that it's being held in and goes on a rampage. Apparently it can change people's perception of reality to (I have no clue either). The government is trying to keep this particular oil rig secret, if only the Producers of Jim Wynorski's latest in a LONG series of awful movies dating back to 1990 (when he made his last enjoyable film) opted to do the same thus sparing us 94 minutes of our lives that will never be returned. Avoid this incompetent trash like Paula Poundstone and you were an orphan. The thing is if it wasn't for the CGI it wouldn't be THAT bad. Don't get me wrong it would still suck, just not as much.Eye Candy: Glori-Anne Gilbert dances topless for no reason whatsoeverMy Grade: D-
Why?
posted on 05 Jun 2007One of the most horrible movies I've ever seen, if not the single most horrible. I have no idea why it was made.The plot, possibly the best part of the film, was awful. It switched on and off between two extremes: either it was bizarre and confusing, or it was dull and predictable.The acting would have made William Shatner sick to his stomach. The dialogue was written trite and cliché, and the delivery certainly didn't help. It was all strained, and in the rare case where there was emotion in a line, it was fake-sounding, and sometimes even the wrong emotion. It seemed like they were reading lines off the script for the first time. And the directing was just as bad. None of the motions that anybody made were natural-looking. Just a tip for the 'actors' in this film: if the camera is moving to try to (poorly) replicate the feel of a tossing boat, it's best not to just stand still, but to actually be tossed around. Especially if there's one actor who's moving around (albeit awkwardly) as if he's being tossed by the boat in the same room with you, at the same time that you're standing still! And the CGI was horrible. 'Nuff said there.
From the darkest depths...danger!
posted on 20 May 2007A team of researchers led by Captain Jack Griffin(Billy Warlock)and Professor Anna Davis(Catherine Lough Haggquist)answer a distress call from a top-secret oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The team is perplexed to find the remote drilling platform is much like a ghost ship. Searching for answers, crew members begin to disappear one-by-one. It comes apparent a mysterious creature bred beneath the ocean floor is hell-bent on survival. Danger is unimaginable and escape is dreadfully doubtful.Film quality is inconsistent and the CGI is interesting, but totally too noticeable for any fear factor. The old western fast draw gunfight is ridiculous. The lurking creature trying to strike terror actually seems impotent. The cast also features: Kurt Max Runte, Peter Graham Gaudreau, Kiara Hunter and Warren Christie.
Bad, Bad, Bad.......
posted on 23 Aug 2009The worst movie I have EVER seen! I could not even finish watching it all. Please, don't waste your time with this sorry movie. Special fx looked stupid!! Story line is not even a good one. I normally watch everything no matter how bad the movie is. But,this movie I couldn't get to the middle without shutting it off. Why was this movie made?? You want to see a good movie? Try Darkness Falls or Deep Blue Sea. The Devil's Rejects was a very good movie, too. The Island was underrated, but a very good movie. All in all, The Thing Below had poor acting. The scenes I seen are not even worth mentioning. This movie is a one rating compared to Deep Blue Sea witch is a 7. The scale is from 1(the worst) to 10(the greatest).