Film Review: Leviathan (1989) 烈血海底城 - Underrated Sci-fi Horror Master Piece by George P. Cosmatos
Updated: Jul 31, 2021
#FilmReview #Leviathan #影評 #烈血海底城
Fear of Genetic Weapon: Mutagen
Brilliant genre film master, Greco-Italian filmmaker George P. Cosmatos (1941 – 2005) almost perfectly constructed the vivid image of the ''genetically altered'' undersea monster Homo-Aquaticus. George P. Cosmatos was like Sergio Leone (1929-89) in film style, thus his film also obviously influenced by both Sergei Eisenstein (1898-1948) and Hollywood mode of film production. Cosmatos' Tombstone (1993) is an another good example of this claim. It fits the social mood of coronavirus infected country or region. ''Creeping danger of highly contagious virus'' is symbolised and ''materialised'' in cinematic illusion of this fictional creature which was well designed by the famous Four-time Oscar-winning visual effects designer Stan Winston(1946-). This film especially achieved realistic monster effect, its freshness and disgustingness, complicated atmosphere of slasher thriller and psychological fear for vicious virus fetched, enclosed environment like Diamond Princess in Yokohama.
The monster design effect combined with highly crafted cinematography by Alex Thompson (1929-2007); aesthetically stylised ''sufficiently brisk pace'' film editing by John F. Burnett and Roberto Silvi. Screenplay was well written by notable blockbuster writers David Peoples (1940-) and Jeb Stuart (1956-).
Similarity with other aquatic genre films like ''DeepStar Six''(1989) and ''The Abyss''(1989) caused pretty mixed memory in audiences of the three films at the era. Furthermore, ''the material's obvious derivativeness'' to Alien franchise (1979; 1986) and THE THING (1951; 1982) franchise were still pointed out by critics globally. However, despite those external factors, LEVIATHAN (1989) itself should be independently reviewed and treated without commercial bias against it. Homo-Aquaticus is nether Alien nor THE THING creature. It is more complicated than others. Purely made at lab. In other words, this creature is more realistic than any of them.
Almost all casts are very familiar for Japanese audiences, such as Peter Weller (1947-) for Robocop franchise (1987-1990); Richard Crenna (1926-2003) for Rambo franchise (1982; 1985; 1988; 2008); Daniel Stern (1957-) for Home Alone franchise (1990; 1992); Ernie Hudson (1945-) for Ghostbuster franchise (1984; 1989; 2016); Héctor Elizondo (1936-) for Beverly Hills Cop III (1993); Meg Foster (1948-) for They Live (1988). Casting itself already exceeds ordinary blockbusters including both ''DeepStar Six''(1989) and ''The Abyss''(1989) at that time of release.
Like Alien franchise, the theme of this film is about corporate ethics. Workers are always expendable but they can unite against bad and inhuman management under extreme conditions. The monster is a caricature of fear for contagion; the real antagonist is the bad manager CEO Ms. Martin of Tri-Oceanic Corp. played by Meg Foster. A well-made genre film has both personal development of protagonist(s) and making audiences enlightened at the end. This film actually achieved both core requirements thus it is not just about the rescue process and its completion. Horror film is not about monsters always. All films are about human society, human itself.
Narrative Structure
Every professional director in Hollywood understands the three act structure. It is a way to cinematically interpret the narrative structure for all film departments. For being a film editor, it is not an exception. On the contrary, ordinary critics and film theorists almost only see narrative features without any structural understanding of cinematic art. Both profit centre or political centre are helpless for filmmakers.
In filmmaking, the time ratio on narrative structure is not fundamental, however it is main characters' decision making that drives story narrative always. The nature of plots is decision making of the protagonist. Moreover the original screen play is finally reconstructed or improved at the post production during both film editing and sound editing. Text is not the final form of film work.
ACT1: (Establishment) Tri-Oceanic Corp.'s crew members are ordered by the CEO Miss Martin to engage in deep sea mining under supervision of geologist, the protagonist Steven Beck. (Inciting Incident) One of crew members, Buzz 'Sixpack' Parrish accidentally finds abandoned Soviet ship LEVIATHAN and brings ship records and mysterious virus contaminated vodka to their mining ship.
(End of ACT1) Sixpack arguably cheats Steven Beck to secretly share it with other crew Bridget Bowman. Dr. Glen 'Doc' Thompson and Steven Beck checks the captain's video to find out that the Leviathan was scuttled for some reason.
ACT2:(Complication) Sixpack dies from strange illness that marked with lesions along his body. Dr. Glen 'Doc' Thompson conducts medical check on all crew members. While Beck and Doc reports the infectious disease to Miss Martin, Bowman's symptoms appear and commit suicide after seeing Sixpack's mutated cadaver. The storm is also reportedly on the surface of the sea and rescue plan is delayed 12 hours. Dr. Glen 'Doc' Thompson and Steven Beck decide to flush the mutating cadavers from the ship. Unfortunately, the bodies start squirming and crew G.P. Cobb is clawed before they eject it and it escapes. Then they finally realise that the Soviet ship was scuttled after the mutagen experiment got out of control. Another crew member Tony DeJesus Rodero gets killed by a lamprey-like creature at kitchen later. The creature grows by devouring blood and plasma from the cooler at medical room, it grows tentacles to attack the crew. (Midpoint; A Point of No Return) This inspires Steven Beck to try flushing it out in the same way they did with corpses of Buzz 'Sixpack' Parrish and Bridget Bowman. (End of ACT2) Dr. Glen 'Doc' Thompson ejects emergency pods to contain mutagen, Martin claims she can't send rescue team due to hurricane, Cobb's mutation starts and infects Dr. Glen 'Doc' Thompson. The crew accesses computer to know Tri-Oceanic Corp. declares all of them ''dead'' in an ''accident.''
ACT3: (Final Confrontation) The creature Homo-Aquaticus causes more damages to the vital system of the ship and implosion is inevitable. (Solution) The crew decides to escape by dive suits. The creature is crushed by a lift as the protagonist Steven Beck escapes. A Coast Guard helicopter meets them on the surface of blue ocean. The mutant also surfaces nearby and take Justin Jones, and Steven Beck explodes the creature by throwing a demolition into the mouth. (Ending) They are dropped at a Tri-Oceanic oil drilling platform and greeted by inhumane C.E.O. Miss Martin insincerely. Then Steven Beck knocks her out. (This kind of plot point does not exist in today's Hollywood films under corporatism; it can only be allowed when lower rank officers make terrible mistakes but not the C.E.O.)
The narrative structure is perfect that it completely follows the principles of filmmaking. Moreover it decides which shot is necessary or unnecessary from the holistic view point of the entire story structure. Everything not on the track, anything out of the framework must be cut out from footage.
Technical Aspects
From the view point of methodology, we can confirm correctness of some filmmaking principles in this film. And we should also analyse specific solutions, aesthetic achievements done by George P. Cosmatos and his crew members. For being a professional film editor, I mainly focus on editing aspect. How to edit a film is about how it is photographed, how it is staged, how it is written and how the entire filmmaking process of it is managed by establishment.
1. Smash Cuts: George P. Cosmatos did not abuse ''jump scare'' trick of today. Two smash cuts are effectively made in this film. We can only see two jump scare solutions. It is a sign of good horror film in good old days. The cutting pace is swiftly changed in a sudden insert, then quickly cuts to reverse shot. The moment of attack by a fish is exactly synched with the suddenly inserted close up shot of it. The cut point is the attack moment. Editing is like visualised music if its visual-sound montage is correctly handled.
Another example is part of very intensified dramatic scene when the crew tries to eject the two mutated bodies. Use of refrain is dramatically enhanced the mood of the tense moment for the crew. The smash cut is combined with a series of quick cutaways. Every set of shots has its theme.
Dialectic film montage. Fig4, Fig5 and Fig6 are a good example of Hegelian-Eisenstein dialectic solution in film art. Fig4 is a thesis (Among the crew, DeJesus finds ST), Fig5 is an antithesis ( G. P. Cobb finds it, too), and Fig6 is their synthesis (DeJesus, G. P. Cobb and more crew members find it). It achieved beautiful refrain in film editing. Of course it can't be done only by editing itself. Framing is also consciously done in this way. Then, we have a set of smash cuts.
