deep rising - puppet masters

Before he reinvigorated Universal Studios’ with his action-adventure take on The Mummy in 1999 (and proved a flick could open big before the official summer movie season), director Stephen Sommers did a dry run with the underappreciated Deep Rising, a tongue-in-cheek giant monster movie about a cruise ship under attack by an oversized squid.

With obvious references to Ray Harryhausen stop-motion classics combined with a screwball comedy sensibility, the film established a formula that served the director well…until the well ran dry on Van Helsing. Still, there’s some appeal to this kitchen-sink creature feature that stars Treat Williams as an Indiana Jones-style mercenary who gets stuck on the ship with some bad guys with guns. But all the bullets in the world can’t stop the tangle of tentacles that seem to have dragged every living passenger to their doom…except for Famke Janssen (X-Men) who makes for a lovely and lively comic foil.

The CG effects were supervised by stop-motion maestro Phil Tippet and, despite some rough edges, have a real personality about them despite being nothing more than slimy sea appendages. Minus the swear words and copious amount of gore, this is really the exact same template used for The Mummy a year later – including co-star Kevin J. O’Connor who would play a weasily character in most of Sommer’s films from this point forward.

Robert A. Heinlein’s story The Puppet Masters predates Jack Finney’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers by about three years. So give Heinlein the credit for coming up with the idea of brain-sucking aliens who can take over our bodies and use them for world conquest. But his story, set in the future with more typical sci-fi trappings, lacked the real-world menace described in Finney’s tale. And when Invasion was turned into a successful film less than a year later, Heinlein’s work faded into obscurity.

Two more versions of Invasion came and went on the screen before anyone bothered to tackle The Puppet Masters (1994) and even then the story was tied to Finney’s by association with star Donald Sutherland (from 1978’s superior Invasion remake) and the jettisoning that pesky futuristic setting. The movie is set in modern day Iowa where a UFO landing of some sort introduces a parasite that rides on the victim’s back and takes over their nervous system, forcing them to submit to the “hive mind” out to remove human emotions from the equation.

Sutherland plays the director of a super-secret science agency, Eric Thal is his sharpshooting son, and pint-size hottie Julie Warner (Doc Hollywood) plays the scientist-slash-love-interest whose idea for “outing” the aliens is to see who sneaks a peek down her blouse when she leans over. Now there’s some scientific method I can appreciate!

Screenwriters Ted Elliott & Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean) along with superhero scribe David Goyer comes up with a slam-bang first half as the residents of an entire small-town succumb to the alien commands. But things get a bit more boring as the movie lifts idea wholesale from The Thing, Invaders from Mars and any other ‘50s sci-fi story it can think of. Slick moviemaking eventually succumbs to an idea that’s just past it’s prime.

No extras except trailers, but this double-feature Blu-ray from Mill Creek Entertainment looks awfully good for a value-priced release you can find under $10 bucks.