AllMovie

Friday the 13th director Sean S. Cunningham helmed this sea-monster opus about a team of engineers on an undersea missile platform who disturb the slumber of a huge, killer crustacean, which soon develops a taste for human-flavored snacks. The rubbery-looking beastie is quite a laugh, but there are some genuine freak-outs as it chomps away at the crew -- that is, while they're not reducing their own numbers through sheer incompetence. In the end, it's B.J. & the Bear's Greg Evigan (alas, minus chimp) who saves the day. One of a dozen-or-so subaqueous Alien clones (half of which were produced by Roger Corman) designed to trade on the building hype of James Cameron's long-awaited The Abyss, this soggy little picture managed to reach theaters first. Not that it's the least impressive of the lot -- actually, it succeeds on its own terms as a thoroughly intense and fast-paced "B"-monster flick, aided by good performances (Evigan is a likable, sensitive hero, and Miguel Ferrer quaffs the scenery as a high-strung jerk). At least it's better than Leviathan, which tells essentially the same story but wastes considerably more money.