Deepstar Six was released on Blu-ray by Kino Lorber on October 13th 2020. Order via Amazon.com
Special features:
Audio Commentary by Producer/Director Sean S. Cunningham & Visual Effects Supervisor James Isaac
Featurette with Creature Supervisor Greg Nicotero & Creature Designer Robert Kurtzman
Featurette with Composer Harry Manfredini
Original EPK
Extended Vintage Interview Clips
Behind-the-Scenes Footage
Theatrical Trailer
TV Spot
Image Gallery
Limited Edition O-Card
Reversible Art
Optional English Subtitles
Here is our previous coverage of the movie:
DeepStar Six is an American 1989 science-fiction horror film directed by Sean S. Cunningham (Friday the 13th). The movie stars Greg Evigan, Taurean Blacque, Nancy Everhard, Cindy Pickett, Miguel Ferrer and Matt McCoy.
Plot:
The crew of an experimental underwater nuclear base are forced to struggle for their lives when their explorations disturb a creature who threatens to destroy their base.
DeepStar Six is one of myriad underwater-themed movies released around 1989, including Leviathan, The Evil Below, Lords of the Deep, The Rift (Endless Descent) and The Abyss, the latter of which was the only successful entry among these aforementioned movies both at the box office and with film critics.
Writer Lewis Abernathy sold his script at the same time that friend James Cameron was working on his own “underwater monster saga”. Despite Cameron’s asking that he delay this movie to avoid competing with The Abyss, Abernathy went ahead and was thereby deemed persona non grata with Cameron and associates until they patched together their friendship when Abernathy accompanied Cameron on the September 1995 filming of the wreck of the Titanic (but not any actual dives to the wreck itself).
Reviews:
“Certainly, Cunningham is not above stealing from himself to fuel his shocks here – like mounting Friday the 13th‘s just-when-you-thought-they’d-escaped climax over again. That is only half the generic cliches Cunningham poaches, the mild surprise being that a few of them work. Deepstar Six is not as bad as many made it out to be back when the film was released.” Moria
“Even with the lack of monster Sean S. Cunningham keeps up the pace quite well and the focus is on adventure and rescue missions. I sense that he wanted to do something else than horror, but one of the final shots in the film still reminds me of the one of the final shots in his classic slasher Friday the 13th (but to be fair, it’s almost a copy of the ending in Cosmato’s Leviathan instead).” Ninja Dixon
“Despite its best efforts, this film is not really worth watching. It has a lot of boring dialogue scenes that are compounded by a truly terrible script. The sea scorpion barely ever appears and there are only three onscreen kills by the monster, and only one of them is memorable.” Movie Scum
“As derivative as it is, the idea of Deepstar Six had the potential to generate a fair amount of suspense and surprise, but the by-the-numbers storytelling and unimaginative production place it squarely in the realm of the mediocre.” TV Guide
