I love monster movies. But there just doesn’t seem to be a huge supply of good ones. Lately there has been an influx of crappy ones with titles like Dinocroc, Dinocroc vs. Supergator, Piranhaconda, Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus and so on. In 2006, the Korean film The Host took everyone by surprising and it set the bar pretty high for giant monster movies. Flash forward a couple of years and here we have another giant monster movie from Korea and the results are mixed at best.
The film was Korea’s first 3-D effort and expectations were high. The movie turns out to be a mediocre B-movie and as a result it did poorly at the box office. The plot is unoriginal and some of the acting is pretty cheesy but if you go into the film looking for a schlocky monster movie, it’s an OK way to kill some time but there is an infinite of better films you could be watching.
The story is set on a practically deserted oil derrick. Actress Ji-won Ha plays the lead character, a woman whose father also worked on the same rig and died years earlier in an accident trying to find oil in the region. As a result, Ji-won Ha is determined to find oil in the part of the ocean known as Sector 7 where the rig is located. On her off time, Ji-won and her boyfriend race motorcycles around the rig. It looks badly green screened but on the special features, it shows Ji-won Ha actually driving the motorcycle and crashing and injuring herself. Leave to the Asian film industry to use the latest technology but still make their actors risk their lives.
After the groups latest failure to find oil, the company that owns the rig decides to shut down their efforts. Most of the crew is flown away and Ji-won’s uncle Sung-kee Ahn arrives to oversee the closure. But something seems to be stalking the crew. Sung-kee Ahn has a secret. A life-form was discovered in the dark deep ocean below the rig and he’s had a scientist performing experiments on it. It seems the creature is highly flammable and Sung-kee Ahn seems to think that it could be an alternative to oil. So he has had one of the creatures genetically grown larger. Naturally it escapes and goes on a murderous rampage.
The good news is it’s HIGHLY FLAMMABLE!
The bad news is the fire doesn’t really kill it, just piss it off. The movie follows in the footsteps of the many monster movies that have come before it, like Alien, DeepStar Six and Leviathan. The monster picks off the crew one by one until the tough action chick fights it to the death. The one interesting aspect of this film is the horrible gelatinous creature changes as they continually fight and wound the beast. After lighting it on fire several times, the beast takes a slightly cooked and possibly delicious look to it.
I had high hopes for this film and I was pretty disappointed with it. The plot is weak and the 3-D effects are intrusive even in 2-D. Here’s hoping the next big monster movie is better than this film.