Editorials
Remembering ‘Deep Blue Sea’, the Other Killer Shark Movie
“My first trip after being smacked by a van and almost killed was to the movies (Deep Blue Sea, as a matter of fact; I went in my wheelchair and loved every minute of it).”
-Stephen King
You know that movie about the killer sharks? No, not Jaws (or Jaws 2, 3 or 4). Not The Shallows or Open Water either. Don’t even think about mentioning Sharknado (or Sharknado 2, 3 or 4). I’m referring to Renny Harlin’s oft overlooked classic Deep Blue Sea, which turns 17 today. The film is a masterpiece of American cinema, and I demand that it receive the recognition that it deserves.
***SPOILERS for a 17-year-old film below.***
I jest, of course. I’m fully aware that Deep Blue Sea is not what you would call “high quality cinema.” It’s a glorified B-movie (albeit a B-movie with a $60 million budget), but it’s damn entertaining. If you’re a regular reader of my posts, you’ll know that nostalgia plays a large part in my affection towards lesser-loved films. I have many fond memories of Deep Blue Sea from growing up in the 90s and 00s. I wasn’t allowed to watch R-rated movies as a kid, and this was one of those movies that aired all the time on TBS. I would sneakily record R-rated movies on a blank VHS tape, stopping the recording during the commercials of course, and re-watch them constantly (I Know What You Did Last Summer is another one I performed this ritual with). So I have a long history with Deep Blue Sea. The film takes two of the best horror sub-genres and merges them together: the slasher film and the aquatic horror film. Except instead of a bunch of stupid teenagers getting killed by a psychotic killer it’s a bunch of stupid scientists getting killed by intelligent sharks.
It’s no secret that 1999 was not the best year for horror (1997 was a much better year). Boasting the releases of such films as The Rage: Carrie 2, The Haunting, Stigmata and End of Days, there wasn’t a lot to offer. The biggest critical successes of the year were The Blair Witch Project and Stir of Echoes. Shockingly, 1999 also saw the releases of quite a few creature features, a genre typically ignored by mainstream Hollywood: Lake Placid, Bats and Deep Blue Sea. It is unclear why studios were going on a creature feature bender, but it would be the last of its kind. 17 years later and we still haven’t seen another onslaught of theatrically released creature features.
A common complaint about killer shark movies is that the sharks in question do not behave like normal sharks (looking at you, The Shallows). Deep Blue Sea goes out of its way to explain why the sharks are behaving the way they are, giving it a science fiction angle. It’s simple yet convoluted at the same time: a group of scientists have hypothesized that a protein in sharks’ brains can cure Alzheimer’s. They come to this conclusion based on the fact that sharks don’t show any sign of brain damage as the age. When they realize their test sharks’ brains aren’t large enough to harvest sufficient amounts of the protein for use in their experiments they use gene therapies to enlarge them, thereby making them smarter.
Deep Blue Sea is not without its flaws. Are there things that don’t make sense? Absolutely. I still want to see how Carter (Thomas Jane) got the shark onto the loading platform after he tranquilized it. Are there plot points that rely too much on coincidences? Sure. It was mighty convenient that that helicopter crank got jammed when it did. And why does Thomas Jane seem to fall every five minutes? I’m sure I don’t know, but you know what? None of that matters. Deep Blue Sea doesn’t take itself too seriously and neither should you. It’s not trying to be the next Jaws and you shouldn’t hold the fact that it’s a silly shark slasher against it.
There are a ton of memorable moments and set pieces in Deep Blue Sea, the most notable of which is Samuel L. Jackson’s character’s death. That scene has been discussed ad nauseum so we won’t go into it further here. Other memorable set pieces include the claustrophobic ascent up the elevator shaft (RIP Janice), the underwater trek to activate controls to open a door to the surface (RIP Scoggins) and the climactic sequence on the surface (RIP Susan). The CGI in the film looks dated now (animatronics were used for everything except the underwater shots), but for 1999 it wasn’t half bad.
It would be a disservice to the film if we didn’t mention it’s shark food characters. You don’t really care about any of the characters in Deep Blue Sea. Oddly enough, it is Saffron Burrows’s Dr. Susan McAlester who garners the most vitriol from viewers, but she ends up being one of the more likable characters in the film if only because she is the only one given any sort of character development beyond her stereotype. Motivated by her experiences with her father who had Alzheimer’s, she is the Frankenstein to the sharks’ monsters. Even though her actions were reprehensible, she more than redeems herself by the time she dies. The other characters are your basic stock characters: the whiny one (Jacqueline McKenzie’s Janice), the token black guy (LL Cool J’s Preacher), the billionaire with a secret (Samuel L. Jackson’s Russel) and the street rat who is able to hold his breath for unbelievable amounts of time (Thomas Jane’s Carter). The characters don’t matter in a film like Deep Blue Sea though. You came to see the sharks cause mayhem, and mayhem definitely ensues.
The script, credited to Duncan Kennedy, Donna Powers and Wayne Powers, isn’t particularly clever other than the whole “smart sharks” gimmick, but it keeps everything moving at a fairly brisk pace. Kennedy must have made a decent impression with Deep Blue Sea as his only other film writing credit is for the additions he made to Russel Mulcahy’s script for the Australian shark film Bait. The idea for the film came from Kennedy seeing a shark attack victim washed up on the shore near his home. This gave him a recurring nightmare in which he was trapped in a hallway with sharks that could read his mind. To work through his fears, he wrote a screenplay that eventually became Deep Blue Sea. It being a killer shark movie, he was all too aware of the comparisons that would be made to Jaws.
While Deep Blue Sea is commonly seen as a ripoff of Jaws, it actually knows this and uses it to its advantage by paying homage the Spielberg’s classic film. First, the license plate that Carter pulls out of the tiger shark in the beginning of the film is the same license plate pulled out of the tiger shark in Jaws. Second, the sharks all die the same ways as the sharks in the first three Jaws films (first by explosion, second by electricity and third by explosion). Trevor Rabin’s score, specifically the main title theme, immediately calls to mind the two haunting notes from John Williams’s iconic score. Disappointingly, Deep Blue Sea‘s score is still unavailable in its entirety (though you can still listen to it on YouTube thanks to user Justin S). Similarities aside, it still manages to stand on its own just fine. My personal favorite is this segment from the climax of the film.
Interestingly enough, Deep Blue Sea is rather tame for an R-rated film. The word “fuck” is only used twice and other than a passing reference to a vibrator and two or three bloody deaths, it would almost seem like Harlin and Warner Bros. were aiming for a PG-13 rating (I swear I have come cross one or two DVDs of the film that do have a PG-13 rating on them). If that was the case, bless them for not making cuts to get the lower, and more marketable, rating.
Deep Blue Sea grossed $73.6 million when it was initially released. While not a stellar gross, it is impressive for an R-rated movie about killer sharks (something the world desperately needs more of). Fortunately for Warner Bros., it also grossed $91 million internationally, making it a financial success. It is still brought up in discussions today, but usually in an unfavorable light (unless you’re WIRED’s Brian Raftery, who sees things my way).
Deep Blue Sea has created a legacy of its own, even going so far as to inspire the scripts for Rise of the Planet of the Apes and Jurassic World (Seriously, watch them all back-to-back. They’re remarkably similar.). So take 105 minutes today to pull Deep Blue Sea off your shelf and celebrate its 17th anniversary with a celebratory viewing. While you’re doing that, try to find the below shot, a frequently used promotional image, in the film. 17 years later and I still haven’t seen it. Why do movie studios do that? Use an actual shot from the movie!
Five decades ago, Stephen King published the story of a bullied girl with telekinetic powers and forever changed the world of horror.
Carrie follows a high school misfit who seeks revenge for a hideous prank by psychically destroying her senior prom. The name Carrie White has become synonymous with the concept of a formal dance thanks to a flawless adaptation from Brian De Palma. Now fifty years after the film’s release, Mike Flanagan is putting his own stamp on the troubling story.
Rather than a feature film, the writer/director will expand King’s relatively slim debut novel into an eight-episode miniseries for Amazon Prime set to premiere on October 7.
Flanagan is no stranger to the world of Stephen King. A long-time Constant Reader, he first made waves with his daring adaptation of Gerald’s Game (2017), a novel many fans considered un-filmable. His underrated Doctor Sleep merges the disparate plot of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining with King’s original source material, and his 2024 genre-bending tearjerker The Life of Chuck faithfully executes one of the author’s most metaphysical novellas.
He’s currently mired in pre-production for an expansive adaptation of The Dark Tower series, keystone to King’s connected universe, and Warner Bros. recently announced that Flanagan will helm a new version of The Mist, King’s 1980 novella which sees a small Maine town overrun by otherworldly monsters.
Considering the vast array of the author’s previously unadapted material, an obvious question arises. Why reimagine Carrie in 2026? Noting the timeless nature of the content, Flanagan expressed his desire to bring the story of a bullied girl into modern times, mirroring his approach to Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House and Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher. He explained, “The only way to approach it was to build something new out of the ingredients of Carrie. Otherwise, there’s really no purpose in trying to retread ground that’s been so beautifully walked before.”
His miniseries will maintain the novel’s bloody bookends while delivering “big surprises” along the way.
A New Prom Night Nightmare
The roughly 60-second teaser introduces Summer H. Howell as Carrie White just before the moment of catastrophe. Standing in a prom dress, she smiles at her applauding classmates with an ominous crown perched upon her head. Moments later, Carrie unleashes a rage-filled scream into the night air while promgoers rush for the exit doors. But careful examination of this scene shows Carrie wearing a different, albeit dirty dress as she seems to telekinetically punish her peers.
In an exclusive first look with Entertainment Weekly, Flanagan explains that in his version of the story, “the events of that prom are going to be completely different.” An open trunk emitting a crimson glow does hint at the pig’s blood dumped on Carrie’s head, but it’s likely Flanagan’s formal dance will be a different kind of horror altogether. Despite these changes, the series may end with the widespread destruction outlined in the source material. Unlike any previous adaptations, King’s novel ends with the near-total destruction of Chamberlain, Maine. A flaming street in Flanagan’s trailer promises similar carnage no matter what prank sparks Carrie’s deadly revenge.
The Monstrous Addition of Social Media
On the opposite end of this fiery conclusion is an extreme act of bullying that brings together the story’s main cast. King’s novel begins as Carrie gets her first period while showering in the girls’ locker room. Completely unaware of the concept of menstruation, the sheltered girl thinks she’s bleeding to death. Her classmates respond with vitriolic rage. Led by ultra-mean girl Chris Hargensen (Alison Thornton), they mock the terrified teen while pelting her with tampons. Glimpses of this disturbing event reveal that Flanagan has excised the scene’s nudity while adding a seismic update. As Carrie sobs in the shower stall, Chris and her friends film the breakdown with their phones.
Other scenes note the presence of social media, bringing King’s fifty-year-old story into the digital age.
Flanagan’s adaptation promises to explore the destructive power of social media, an often invisible entity with a potential for harm rivaling Carrie’s own powers. While King’s tormented heroine suffers in front of a small group of girls, Flanagan’s version of the incident will likely become a viral video, potentially circling the globe on social media. Similar to Katt Shea’s criminally underrated The Rage: Carrie 2, which includes elements of revenge porn exploitation, Flanagan’s modern retelling will distinguish itself by exploring the nebulous cruelty of online bullying, a force ten times more powerful than the irl pranks King first envisioned.
A Completely Reimagined White Family
In addition to modernizing these canon events, Flanagan hints at updates to Carrie’s oppressive upbringing at the hands of her mother, Margaret White (Samantha Sloyan). Dead before the novel begins, we never meet Carrie’s domineering father Ralph, known to carry a bible alongside his gun. Flanagan’s White household will be an altogether different beast. In his version of the story, Carrie and her mother have been hidden away in the unassuming home, forced out of hiding by Ralph’s unexpected death. Perhaps we will finally meet this elusive man whose shadow hangs over his wife and child. Considering the White family’s fundamentalist lifestyle, this reimagining hints at tradwife culture and a home ruled by staunch patriarchal control.
Whereas King’s Carrie has been tormented by her classmates since Kindergarten, Flanagan’s Carrie will be a wide-eyed newcomer to public school, eager to make friends and engage with her peers. We glimpse Carrie cozying up to Chris and the equally popular Sue Snell (Siena Agudong) as she navigates a new social scene. Of course, we know this kindness is part of an elaborate plot designed to lull Carrie into a false sense of camaraderie, setting up an atrocious act of public humiliation. These brief moments of feigned compassion put Sue’s own complicity into question. Will Flanagan’s version of the character find the courage to defend Carrie from vicious bullies or will she succumb to peer pressure and join in the mob mentality?
Perhaps the biggest deviation from King’s original text is the relationship between Carrie and her mother. King’s Margaret White is a horrifically abusive religious zealot whose worldview has been hardened by internalized misogyny. She shames Carrie for menstruating, locks her in a closet to “pray,” and regrets not killing her child in infancy. She’s also responsible for Carrie’s social ostracization. Known to berate her neighbors for their “sins,” Margaret forces her daughter to live by an extreme code of conduct and disallows any potential friends lest they corrupt the girl with their worldly ways.
Flanagan’s version of the character is perhaps just as much a victim as Carrie herself. Also trapped inside her home, his Margaret is overly vigilant, her own trauma manifesting as strict control. Describing a more sympathetic depiction of the iconic villain, Flanagan explains, “Our Margaret White is a woman who fiercely loves her daughter and wants to protect her from this world … [She] doesn’t know how to do that and thinks the way to protect her is to close her off; not punitively, but to create this private utopia.”
Despite this potential softening, Sloyan’s Margaret may still have a sharp edge. Though she has appeared in many Flanagan projects, from Hush (2016) to The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), she is best known for her role as the abhorrent Bev Keane in the poignant saga Midnight Mass (2021). Perhaps inspired by King’s Margaret White, Bev is pious and sadistic, willing to punish anyone who does not adhere to her warped approximation of Catholicism.
Flanagan specifically wrote Margaret with Sloyan in mind, likely remembering the actress’s eerie ability to create deceptive empathy and shift our allegiances on a dime.
Expanding Stephen King’s Telekinetic Universe
While most of King’s story deals with an unthinkable prom night in Chamberlain, Maine, large sections of the semi-epistolary novel see experts debating the nature of telekinesis. Do Carrie’s frightening abilities represent a new phase in human evolution or is the prom night carnage merely a fluke? King settles the debate with a shocking denouement in which a young mother recounts her infant daughter’s ability to dangle her crib toys in midair. We’re left to wonder if she will become another tormented girl who surprises the world with metaphysical strength.
Flanagan plans to build out this brief scene while amplifying themes of female empowerment. After introducing our main cast of characters, episode two will open with an unrelated story in which we meet another girl with the TK gene. Each subsequent chapter will expand this world, building out a roster of telekinetic young women. Considering King’s fondness for stories about powerful kids, often described as possessing “the shining,” Constant Readers will no doubt have their eyes peeled for various Easter Eggs nodding to the author’s vast catalogue.
Giving Carrie Her Own Voice
Perhaps the most striking distinction in Flanagan’s new trailer is the extent to which we hear Carrie’s voice. The sneak peek is fully narrated by the titular prom queen as she demands accountability. “I want to know why,” she explains while detailing Chris’ elaborate plan. Aside from the aforementioned coda, King’s book essentially ends with the aftermath of the prom night tragedy, leaving little time for Carrie to reflect. His shifting narrative does bring the reader into her fragile mind, though not before she’s been cowed by relentless cruelty. We watch Carrie sink into bloodthirsty revenge, but never hear a considered desire for justice or repair.
Flanagan’s original monologue allows Carrie to voice her pain and mourn the life she could have had. We’re also treated to a mug shot-style photo of Chris with a bruised and bandaged face, implying that the mean girl will have to answer for her senseless sadism.
Flanagan is known for filling his series adaptations with heartwrenching speeches that cut to the heart of his thematic intentions, and this teaser seems to follow suit. After years of fans, critics, and scholars analyzing Carrie’s pain, perhaps his modern retelling will offer the titular anti-hero a chance to finally speak for herself.
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