Editorials
‘Deep Blue Sea’ is Still as Entertaining Today as It Ever Was [Retrospective]
An apex predator of the sea, Hollywood and audiences have had an enduring love affair with sharks. It was Steven Spielberg’s seminal Jaws that simultaneously birthed the summer blockbuster in 1975 and made people afraid to go into the water. Save for a few sequels and low budget copycats, though, the limited sub-genre of shark horror was a vast wasteland for decades. Until director Renny Harlin unleashed big budget action horror spectacle Deep Blue Sea in the summer of 1999, that is. A special effects extravaganza that delivers nonstop action sequences and unexpected, gnarly deaths, Deep Blue Sea holds a special place in the canon of shark horror.
Written by Duncan Kennedy, Donna Powers, and Wayne Powers, Deep Blue Sea shares more in common with Alien than it does Jaws. Of course, this shark film pays its respects to its godfather; Thomas Jane’s action hero Carter Blake pries a license plate from the mouth of a tiger shark in an early scene, a direct nod to the license plate found in the belly of a dead tiger shark in Jaws. But the entire setup of the film bears a stronger resemblance to Ridley Scott’s classic 1979 space horror. The lines between sea and space are blurred, with the skeleton crew of the underwater research facility Aquatica trapped inside as they’re hunted by intelligent monsters. Instead of a Xenomorph, though, it’s a trio of scientifically enhanced Mako sharks.
Samuel L. Jackson plays Russell Franklin, the equivalent to Nostromo captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt). Franklin is the level-headed straight man, a corporate exec sent to investigate the facility after a shark escapes and attacks a party boat. Franklin has endured harrowing, extreme situations in his past, and has the chops to rally this motley crew of blue-collar workers and scientists together to survive. Except, he’s taken out early and in a shocking way. Smack in the middle of a rousing battle cry. Harlin effectively keeps his audience on their toes, each death unexpected and in defiance of archetypal expectations. Not all of them go by shark, either. Shark wrangler Blake steps up to the plate as capable hero, Deep Blue Sea’s version of Ellen Ripley, but that wasn’t exactly the original intent.
Of all the deaths in the film (Stellan Skarsgard’s Jim Whitlock suffers a horrifically prolonged one), the only death that feels out of place is that of Susan (Saffron Burrows). She fights for her research and her life the entire film, only to give up and allow herself to become shark food in the finale. It turns out that wasn’t the original ending for Susan; she was supposed to be the Ellen Ripley of the story. In the original ending, Susan was the one to harpoon and kill the final shark. A test screening one month prior to the film’s release changed that. The test audience hated Susan. She was the one who violated ethics and masterminded the sharks’ creation, after all. Susan was seen as the film’s villain, not the hero. Last minute reshoots meant Susan died and Aquatica cook Preacher (LL Cool J) got to play hero with Carter. It was ultimately the right call. Though Susan’s experiments came from a place of good, she wasn’t given much of a redemption arc to earn her heroine title. Not even Carter forgives her until the moment she concedes they should kill the final shark, and by then it’s too late. Considering Carter displayed common sense from the outset, he filled the hero role better anyhow.
If there’s one thing Renny Harlin does well, it’s craft thrilling action with big budget flair. As such, Deep Blue Sea isn’t exactly high-brow, but boy does it entertain. There’s a gleeful sense of fun, as Harlin speeds from exhilarating action sequence to exhilarating action sequence. It’s a reminder that movies don’t always have to have profound depth or a statement to make to solidify their ranks as worthwhile cinema; just pure summer fun will sometimes do.
Deep Blue Sea was the first film Stephen King saw in theaters after nearly dying from a vehicular accident and he enjoyed every second of it. So did critic Roger Ebert. The point being is that there’s a reason Deep Blue Sea was profitable during its theatrical run, and why it still has a solid fanbase today. Harlin dared to bring the horror genre back to the high-budget ranks of films like Jaws, a rarity when horror has increasingly become relegated to low budget profit machines. Jaws may be the granddaddy of all shark horror films, but Deep Blue Sea proved action-horror, great special effects, and a strong grasp of suspense can be just as memorable.
I first heard about The Mandela Catalogue through a couple of nephews who were obsessed with the ARG’s sinister mythology. It was only after watching Wendigoon’s in-depth analysis of the series that I realized just how deep this rabbit hole goes.
In fact, I’d already been exposed to the nightmarish visuals of Alex Kister’s YouTube creation for years at that point without even realizing that it was the origin of several viral “cursed images” and spooky memes that had leaked into the wider internet – with this viral element actually being a part of the Catalogue’s overarching narrative.
Flash-forward to 2026 and the unprecedented success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms has led to Hollywood betting on horrific internet properties with existing fanbases, which means that Kister’s unique hybrid of both religious and analog horror is finally headed to the big screen with a script written by Kister himself alongside Tyler Clifton.
While this news shouldn’t be too surprising if you’ve been keeping up with the ongoing success of The Mandela Catalogue (both myself and Wendigoon having previously predicted that the series would inevitably make the jump to theaters one day), plenty of horror fans are likely confused as to why so many folks are excited for what appears to be a Hollywood adaptation of a series of creepy .jpeg images under a VHS filter.
With that in mind, today I’d like to invite fellow readers to accompany me as I explore the origins of Alex Kister’s viral hit and attempt to explain exactly why we should all be excited about the Mandela Catalogue adaptation!
From High School Writing Project to Internet Horror Phenomenon
The first seeds of The Mandela Catalogue were sown when Kister was still in high school and developed a writing project subverting religious tropes in a world where biblical history had been altered by demonic forces. A little while later, Kister came across an analog horror contest on Reddit and decided to adapt his ideas into a standalone video where he would edit a religious kids’ cartoon –The Beginner’s Bible: The Nativity, to be specific- into something far creepier. This is how the iconic Overthrone video was born, with this viral short film taking on a life of its own as fans demanded more eerie content from Kister.
Though the video was originally meant to be a one-and-done sort of affair, with Kister actually regretting some of its primitive visuals and considering the editing amateurish and “YouTube-Poop-like” when compared to his current standards, fan reaction and free time during the COVID-19 pandemic encouraged the (then) seventeen-year-old filmmaker to continue producing content set in this same world. The Mandela Catalogue name was inspired by the Mandela Effect conspiracy theory, as the series would slowly begin to explore the subtle horror of alternate histories.
Inspired by existential dread brought on by extended periods of quarantine as well as a personal crisis of faith, Kister continued to expand his alternate timeline where the rise of Christianity had been prevented by what was presumably the Devil disguised as the Archangel Gabriel. This alternate course of fictional events led to the existence of certain paranormal anomalies that had come to be accepted as “normal” by the 1990s, which is why most of the series’ supernatural horror is presented in such a matter-of-fact manner.
Most of this background information and religious lore is delivered by increasingly cryptic broadcasts and in-universe PSAs, as well as the occasional found footage video, that often have to be decoded by clever viewers. Of course, it’s the consistently disturbing imagery that made the series so popular – much of which was originally created by Kister on a smartphone!
The Alternates: Horror’s Most Unsettling Modern Monsters
The show’s early episodes mostly take place within the fictional Mandela County in Wisconsin and depict life in a world where demonic entities are capable of using media to enter our reality. This process usually involves scaring victims into killing themselves and then repurposing their bodies as horrific doppelgangers referred to as “Alternates”. This terrifying phenomenon has become so common that local police already have specialized procedures in place to deal with the issue, though this usually consists of simply ignoring calls for help so as to avoid spreading so-called “Metaphysical Awareness Disorder” any further.
Over time, Kister would expand this mythology and incorporate different kinds of Alternates into the mix, though the story never stopped deconstructing religious concepts. The series’ second volume exponentially increased both video quality and the overall narrative scope as we began to follow the lives of characters who had already grown up in this dystopian hellscape where the government is forced to prohibit religion, television, and even mirrors in the hopes of mitigating the damage done by the ongoing invasion of otherworldly entities.
The really interesting part comes into play when you realize exactly how the Alternates make use of scary media in order to spread their demonic influence, with the analog horror of it all being a diegetic part of the story and something of a memetic trap orchestrated by the false Gabriel.
I particularly appreciate how some characters begin to suspect that there’s something wrong with their version of reality and that things weren’t meant to play out this way, especially when Mark utters the haunting line “who have I been praying to all this time?” That’s why I think The Mandela Catalogue is an effective piece of religious horror even if you don’t subscribe to the Christian worldview, as the mere idea of a world where evil has already won is a universally terrifying concept in and of itself. Not only that, but the series’ uncanny analog imagery alone is already worth the price of admission, as you’ve likely already noticed by looking at the pictures accompanying this article.
Why The Feature Adaptation Could Be Horror’s Next Big Success
It’s actually been a whole year since Kister first announced that he had been working on a feature-length screenplay for a Mandela Catalogue movie since 2022, with his proposed story following an ensemble of high-school graduates who uncover a supernatural conspiracy after the mysterious disappearance of a fellow student. This premise sounds similar to narrative elements present in the series’ second volume, but I’m pretty sure that Kister is going to go the Kane Parsons route and make the movie more of a spin-off than a re-imagining of its source material.
While notable Hollywood producers like Aaron B. Koontz, Scott Stuber, and Steven Spielberg himself are backing the upcoming project, I feel like there’s no one better to adapt this deeply personal exploration of faith and the dark side of communication than the person who first came up with it. That’s why I can’t wait to see Kister’s work on the big screen, as I have a feeling that this young filmmaker is the next one on the list about to make cinematic history – especially since this is clearly a passion project that has been in the works for years at this point!
That being said, there’s always a chance that the film could end up unleashing a fresh wave of Alternate incursions, but I guess that’s just a risk we’ll have to take.
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