Thursday, September 9, 2010

Leviathan (George P. Cosmatos, 1989; photographed by Alex Thomson)

Carefully detailed Alex Thomson 'scope camerawork + the usual clumsy Cosmatos direction, resulting in a film's that both dumb-blunt (in the flow of action) and smart-detailed (in the way that action is presented) at the same time. In short: people placed precisely in the frame say stupid shit (Ernie Hudson: "We got a Dracula here with us?") and get chased by a rubber monster. It's also surprisingly bland for a David Webb Peoples scripts -- a 1989 undersea-base thrillers (Deepstar 6, The Abyss) and a blatant rip-off of both Alien and The Thing -- though its sheer goofiness is well served by Thomson's resolute old-fashionedness.

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