The Rift

Remember James Cameron's "The Abyss", well that started a short-lived craze for dangerous Sci-fi/ horror underwater features in the late 80s and branching from that came some monster efforts in the vein of "Deepstar Six" and "Leviathan". Director Juan Piquer Simón (known for the outrageous slasher "Pieces" and enjoyably nasty "Slugs") cash-in "Endless Descent aka The Rift" falls more in the latter crowd. It amusedly knows what it is and keeps to its strengths. Sometimes laughable, but it works. A high tech experimental submarine Siren One has disappeared in a rift and Wick Hayes the creator of the design is asked to return to be part of a team in Siren II in the search of the missing sub. As they dive deeper they come across a black box transmission, but also encounter underwater life forms that might just be more to it than what they were prepared for. After getting off to a slow start setting up the situation, it eventually builds itself up rapidly by rallying up some intense moments, bloody surprises and imaginatively elastic monster designs (largely underwater plant life and roaming tentacles) that really make an impression the further along the film goes. The comprised special effects are neatly realised, adding in some cheaply punishing jolts but still having creativity within them. Obviously a low-budget and quickly produced enterprise, and clunky story takes elements from other films (Galaxy of Terror comes to mind) which took away any sense of narration surprises, but clichés / and predictability aside Simon does a decent job putting them together in a fairly entertaining, if daft mixture. His tightly measured direction works in its favour creating a compact, but arrestingly threatening atmosphere, along with Joel Goldsmith's spine-tingling music score that complements the terrors waiting in the unknown. The acting is far from great and a junky script doesn't help either, but having the likes of dependable stars as R. Lee Emery, Ray Wise, Jack Scalia, Deborah Adair and small parts from Edmund Purdom and Garrick Hagon give it a lot stability. John Toles-Bey plays the token wise-cracking character with the stunning Ely Pouget in a ripe, no-bull turn. It might not match the professional gloss of the other mentioned underwater features, but it's definitely my favourite of its ilk. Generic, but fun.

An experimental submarine gets sent on a rescue mission to find out what happened to a previous similar sub. Things go nightmarishly awry when the rescue sub crew discover lethal genetic mutations deep under the ocean. Director Juan Piquer Simon, working from a silly script by David Coleman, keeps the enjoyably inane story moving at a brisk pace, maintains an engaging earnest tone throughout, generates a reasonable amount of tension, and delivers a satisfying smattering of gooey gore. The sincere acting by the game cast keeps this picture humming: Jack Scalia as rugged maverick designer Wick Hayes, R. Lee Ermey as the hard-nosed Captain Phillips, Ray Wise as shifty navigator Robbins, Deborah Adair as Wick's feisty ex-wife Lt. Nina Crawley, Ely Pouget as the sassy Ana Rivera, John Tales as likable smartaleck Joe Kane, and Tony Isbert as no-nonsense pilot Fleming. The modest (not so) special effects possess a certain hokey charm. Joel Goldsmith's robust score does the rousing trick. Juan Marine's slick cinematography provides a fairly polished look. A tacky hoot.

The Rift (1990) ** (out of 4) The experimental submarine Siren I goes missing so the government sends the Siren II to find out what happened. A new crew led by Captain Phillips (R. Lee Ermey) heads into the waters and soon they find the killing creatures. Juan Piquer Simón will always be known for his cult classic PIECES as well as the overly insane and gory SLUGS but this film here certainly has enough good moments to where fans of his will want to check it out. Obviously, the low-budget film borrows from the likes of ALIENS, THE ABYSS and even LEVIATHAN but this somewhat adds to the charm. The best thing about this movie are the gory special effects that certainly push the R-rating. Obviously the effects aren't as graphic as what we saw in PIECES but they're still a lot of fun. I really thought the production team did a terrific job on the underwater scenes and especially the cave of the creatures. All of it looked extremely good and they certainly got everything that they could out of the budget. Even better where the gory special effects. Once the violence breaks out there are all sorts of creatures that get blown apart and this adds to the gory fun. The look of the creature was also decent, although they do kind of take a Roger Corman approach and not show it that much. The cast is good for what they're asked to do but there's no doubt that the screenplay is really lacking any sort of originality and I'd argue that the film is missing any sort of suspense. With that said, fans of the director will get a kick out of certain elements of THE RIFT and for the most part it's a decent low-budget film.

Saw this as a kid 20 years later still like it. Not likely you will find this but if you do watch it. I've seen a 100 low budget flicks like this it is in the top few percentile. Has a weird cool 80s/90s movie feel mullets and all! Also full of above average gory special fx. If you like Carnosaur, critters or Leviathan you gotta see this.

Despite amateurish acting, cheesy special effects, a painfully awkward script, and an impossibly awful plot, this turkey isn't even watchable for its camp values. This hot mess ignores the basics of going underwater. They even have an open hatch for the diver (in a standard dry suit, no less) to exit! The equivalent of opening the door to a space ship in a 50's B-grade children's show. If I had to guess, the producers had to launder a barrel of coke money.

If you like poor SE, (some) bad acting and a total lack of credibility, this is a movie for you. So a really cheap looking movie, but I liked it anyway. Why? Because I like those kind of movies. I can't help but smile when I see these kind of movies....... What were the producers, actors, director and SE people thinking when they made this film? Don't expect an "Abyss" or "Alien", just a (very) low-budget horror/adventure movie. There is one nice "splatter"moment when a guy's head is shot off, but for the most, the horror is pretty tame. The final monster is pretty cool too. It's only 73 minutes long, so you can t go wrong there. Maybe you can pick it up at your local videostore or watch it on TV. I'm sure you will have a good time watching it. But don't say you weren't warned.............

Whew, thought it would be at least mildly entertaining. Following a check of Full Metal Jacket, I thought another of F. Lee Ermey's military roles would be as good. WRONG!!! Bad special effects, worse than any 50's Buck Rogers episode, mindless dialogue, cheesy love interest that gives away the ending as soon as it starts. Bottom line, this movie SUCKS. Don't bother renting.

This is a well-acted, low budget science-fiction/horror movie set in the deep ocean. It involves a submarine crew on a rescue mission and a secret government project which has gone terribly wrong. The crew are stereotypical, but likable, so the viewer is genuinely concerned about their fate. The stand-out performers are the great Lee Ermey (as the submarine commander) and Ray Wise (as a seemingly obsequious science officer). B-movie action hero, Jack Scalia, also gives a strong performance as the brilliant, but iconoclastic, lead. The special effects, which include a wide variety of aquatic monsters, are certainly low-budget but never laughable or too fake looking. The obvious use of submarine miniatures are somewhat unconvincing. The film is rated R for a considerable amount of gore and strong language. There is little or no sexual content. This underwater thriller is reminiscent of sci-fi films of the late 1950's/early 1960's, such as It! The Terror from Beyond Space and Angry Red Planet (two other films which I would also recommend). It is also somewhat similar to DeepStar Six, another underwater horror film which was released at about the same time.

I liked the film overall. OK, I admit the acting (except for Lee Ermey at the end) was uniformly bad. The idea of a land ledge deep down in the ocean was pretty neat. Sure there were stupid mistakes, but hey this is a movie. Look, late at night I prefer mindless monster movies. Another good thing was they didn't try to make Jack Scalia too much of a macho hero. And they didn't make too much romance. When you're facing unheard-of-before monsters who has time to say silly romantic lines we see in so many other movies? There was some smartness in the plot, although I would have liked some more genetics mumbo-jumbo. The starfish monster was pretty good. I'd give it 5/10.

The Rift is a "high-art" concept that combines the movie Aliens with Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and you get... well, you get a film that's worse than any old Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode, that's for sure. There are some truly creepy moments in thismfilm, but those are buried by many shoddy special effects, badly stereotyped characters like the frightened Hispanic cook and the overly cocky, leering and jiving Black guy; and lastly a really weak ending that's supposed to be like the one at the end of Alien but doesn't quite measure up to anything like Alien. And to add to this sorry mix, Ray Wise's character is supposed to be like the Ash character in Alien, but while his character is human in this film Wise's acting is no less robotic as he goes through the film with his little secret "sly" smiles to show that he's not who or what he's supposed to be. But despite all of it's flaws, it's not too bad of a sci-fi/horror film. It just could have used one, maybe two more script revisions to have polished it up.