the rift

James Cameron's The Abyss might be only a footnote in the director's career, wedged between installments of the Terminator and his record-breaking run with Titanic, but the short-lived buzz around its production inspired several other "underwater monster" flicks that rushed to beat it to the screen. And the crazy thing is, they did! Thanks to the Abyss' 140-day shooting schedule and legendary production delays, movies like Leviathan and Deepstar Six were first into cinemas. And although they don't share much in common with Cameron's first-contact thriller, these quickie creature features have earned their fare share of fans since 1989.

One year late to the party was The Rift (aka Endless Descent), which was released straight-to-video in 1990, starring Jack Scalia as the designer of a sunken supersub who joins a rescue mission on its sister ship to retrieve the black box and find out what happened to the crew. But the rescue team soon finds itself in danger when mutated monsters attack the ship both inside and out.

Directed by Juan Piquer Simon, whose gore-on-a-budget approach worked quite well for Fangoria-inspired projects like Pieces and Slugs, gets in over his head here. The ship itself is an unconvincing bit of sub-Star Trek set design dotted with a few CRT displays and TV switchers. And half the movie drifts by before we emerge in an underwater cavern populated by the remnants of some genetic experiment gone wrong.

In that respect The Rift actually plays like one of those late '70s Amicus adventure films (The Land That Time Forgot comes to mind) where intrepid explorers take on a pantheon of extinct rubber monsters. Scalia is suitably buffed up, Ray Wise (Twin Peaks) is convincingly creepy and R. Lee Ermey (Full Metal Jacket) is recruited to make it all seem legit. It's below B-grade filmmaking across the board, but the creatures, which range from carnivorous worms to supersized jellyfish, lend a fantasy element that's just different enough to be required viewing for those with a few empty slots in their Abyss knock-off collection.

And Kino Lorber, with guidance Walter Olson at Scorpion Releasing, have gone out of their way to make it a worthwhile purchase with a brand new HD master and lengthy interviews with stars Scalia, Wise and Ermey. Scalia's segment has the most bang for your buck, giving a detailed account of the difficult working conditions and his poor rapport with the director. Wise is much more politically correct, while Ermey lets loose with a 7-minute tell-it-like-it-is diatribe against the film ("The second worst thing I've ever been in") and his co-stars ("Ray Wise is just a pussy...cat.").

And, most ironic of all, The Abyss is still isn't available on hi-def. What's next, Lords of the Deep?!