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.
There’s a lot of reading left to do in 2026, between the glut of summer releases and the approach of fall, when horror titles get a special push from publishers, but this has already been an incredible year for horror literature.
Some of the biggest names in the genre have turned in outstanding work, rising stars have made their mark, and we’re only halfway through the year.
To celebrate the midway point of 2026, with plenty of horror books still to come, we’re taking a look back at the best horror books we’ve read this year so far, listed alphabetically by author.
If you missed any of these books earlier in the year, consider this your reminder to catch up.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A student running from a crime he may or may not have committed escapes to his father’s country home in Japan, only to find himself haunted by strange apparitions, while in the past, a young samurai tries to find salvation for her family and finds a door to the future instead. Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic begins with this dialogue between past and present, and then blossoms into so much more, a cross-time ghost story about old wounds and what it really takes to finally heal them. I got so happily lost in this one that I would have read at least 200 more pages.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
In this tale of shut-ins, sex workers, artists, and the horrors they both summon and recoil from, Aoife Josie Clements weaves something that feels less like a story to be experienced and more like a psychic wound to be endured, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Evocative in its prose and nightmarish in its imagery, Persona is a story of the masks we wear, and the understanding that not all of our masks are particularly pretty or even easy to breathe through. It’s a dense, literary, unnervingly vicious book, and while it’s already attracted an audience, it deserves a much bigger one.
Dead First by Johnny Compton
Johnny Compton’s latest novel opens with a throwing down of the gauntlet, a sequence that made me instantly think “How on Earth is he going to top this?” It’s a story that begins with a billionaire hiring a private investigator to determine why, despite trying in many brutal ways, he cannot die. That premise, and the scene which sets it all off, is so alluring and delightfully gruesome that you almost can’t believe it’s the way a book begins, and then Compton just keeps going, delivering a supernatural mystery that I could not put down.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
A woman grieving for the life she wanted visits a mysterious island renowned for the healing salt its residents harvest and sell, seeking renewal and relief. What she finds instead is a strange cult with a twisted history with surprising resonance in her own life, and a people who are more than willing to grant the relief she wants, for a price. Laced with beautiful prose and moments of profound realization alongside folk and even cosmic horror, this is vintage Sarah Gailey.
Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
If you love horror film history and analysis, Partially Devoured is an essential. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Kraus, the book is a deep dive into his favorite movie of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, complete with exhaustive research into the making of the film and passages of deeply moving memoir woven in. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the eerie music that opens the film is called while also bursting into tears at how horror movies can save your life, this is a must-read.
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Our reigning King of Extreme Horror, Eric LaRocca weaves books of uncommon beauty out of the most nightmarish parts of humanity, and Wretch is no exception. The story of a grieving man who longs for relief and searches for it amid a strange support group that might be a cult, Wretch is a brutal journey into the darkest part of us all, and explores what salvation we might find when we get to the rotten core of the world and peel back its layers. LaRocca’s on a tear of great work right now that few other genre writers can match.
Headlights by CJ Leede
A mystery, a serial killer horror show, a tribute to Stephen King‘s The Shining. All of these things describe CJ Leede’s Headlights, and yet they don’t begin to cover the full breadth of horror awaiting you in this novel. The story of a former FBI agent drawn back into the cold case that haunts him most, it’s a shocker brimming over with vivid moments that’ll live behind your eyes. CJ Leede has now published three novels, and they’re all bangers, so it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo has been one of our finest genre writers for years now, but It Came From Neverland is my favorite thing she’s written, and it’s not even close. A dark take on Peter Pan from the perspective of an adult Wendy Darling living in World War I-era London, Pelayo’s book works as both a satisfying horror narrative and a rich exploration of what it really means to never grow up. The horror never loses its potency, but it’s the search for the meaning behind the Peter Pan phenomenon in our own lives, and what we can do about it, that sticks with me most.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters is a slim volume, one you can read in just a couple of hours if you’ve got the inclination, but it has the feel of a generation-spanning epic. The story of a breed of vampires born in Central America, the European vampires who encounter them, and the offspring they eventually produced, it spans centuries and packs loads of juicy lore into its pages while never losing its grip on character and narrative drive. I would read hundreds more pages of this world, but I’ll settle for this uncommonly grand-scale novella for now.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
A former pro gamer gets a job at a tech company to pilot a brain-dead human body across the country, and so Paul Tremblay’s sci-fi-horror juggernaut begins. Indebted to Philip K. Dick, the primal snarl of Harlan Ellison, and the quirky comedy of The Big Lebowski, and yet wholly original, this is a towering and ambitious novel by one of horror’s most respected voices. What starts as a high-concept tech thriller soon becomes a startling meditation on the value of stories, who gets to tell them, and what happens when we cede too much control to machines we don’t understand. It’s a stunner.
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