The Thing Below (2004)

The worst movie I have ever seen . . .

I usually pick on poor Rob Zombie, because I thought his movies were the worst ever, that is, until now. I have never seen special-effects so cheap and tacky, but worst of all, even without the horrible special effects, this film is ridiculous. The acting is poor, the script is poor, it feels as if I'm watching a modern-day rendition of a B movie, except I'd rather watch a B movie any day over this one. Stay away from this film unless you want to watch it just to make fun of it! September 30, 2007

Worse than I expected

I like "creature" flicks - even the bad ones - so had high hopes this movie would be at least entertaining. It wasn't. Much of the movie makes no sense (the creature can read minds and yet apparently can't?) and the rest of it was just a jumble of weird bizarre images that didn't gel. Do yourself a favor - watch Lake Placid and pass on this one. May 10, 2006

Worst movie ever seen

I've seen many movies in my lifetime and I can honestly say, without question, that this is the worst movie ever produced. The CGI and the entire plot is a joke. The only reason to watch this movie is for a strip-tease scene which was only a few minutes. Please, do yourself a favor and do not waste a minute watching this movie. Do not be fooled by the DVD cover! I honestly believe that they spent more time making an interesting looking cover than the movie. I am sufficiently upset I wasted money renting this :( April 16, 2006

Odd and Twisted

The trailer promises a movie about an oil rig that lost contact months ago. The reality is a little different. The movie begins near the ending and then does a flashback of less than a day. A research station has drilled a section of the crust and discovered a form of life that is highly radioactive. With the sample sitting on a table while the storm ship it is on is being tossed about like a toy due to a massive hurricane, it suddenly dawns on the characters that it should be stored in safe keeping. Watching two deck hands trying to carry it as precariously as possible is almost humorous.

Long story short, the organism gets out and the race is on. Much of the story is told from the vantage of a general trying to find out what happened and is using a computer hacker. There are other levels of government involvement and the movie seems to make a statement that government involvement is a bad thing. Some dream-like sequences allow the writers to throw in whatever they want (including a strip routine) but does little for the plot.

In the end we have a very convoluted story with lots of unanswered questions. The explanation for the organism was clever and some of its actions were quite inspired. But all in all it seems like the writers weren't sure how to tell the story so they used bits of each choice. Not a bad popcorn film but nothing very memorable either. I don't feel it was quite successful at what it was tying although it did seem to try. The special effects were laughable. The CGI looked like bad cartoons (sort of like the cartoon farmer in Reptilicus) and detracted from the film. A good example of how CGI is merely a tool and that it takes skill to do well. February 15, 2006

Really Bad-but fun to laugh at

This movie is really bad - so bad it descends into the "have fun while laughing at it" type - which is what we did.

The storyline has some promise. Secret government drilling, "something" picked up from deep underground, a gigantic storm that isolates everyone....but it is so full of holes you could drive a truck through it: the "thing" is supposedly so radioactive it will kill people in 10 seconds yet in all the encounters nobody ever has any radiation problems. The thing is from 24 miles down yet is unpressurized, etc. and nothing is done with the story other than to use it as an excuse for a series of random visions, including an extended scene of a stripper. There was no mention of why it bothered if it had all the powers demonstrated later in the movie.. but hey, with a movie like this why ask for a plot that makes sense.

I thought the actors did a servicable job, but then I am very forgiving and others may say it was horrible..it was pretty obvious that their ability to portray being eaten by the tentacles that would be poorly matted in later was not up to the task.

And lets talk about the special effects.. these were the absolute worst in any movie I have seen in the last 20 years. The tentacles look like Monty Python paper cutouts - literally! I've seen better special effects in lego-movies. It was unbelievable, we were simply stunned when they came on the screen. The drill rig was one scene, thats right, one picture that was re-referenced throughout the movie, plus a couple of generic hallways.

The deaths were handled off screen, except for a couple of bad "tentacle-through-the-mouth" effects and there really wasn't any blood and gore so I guess this would be classified more as a suspense than a horror except we were not in suspense, we were laughing at the special effects, dialog and plot holes.

I could go on, from the "General" in his business suit in a an empty room sitting at a card table with a laptop, to the tugboat captain that uses a shotgun to sever his towcable, to the obligatory unexplainable horror ending, this is one of those movies that is so bad its worth watching if your in the right mood. If you have run out of MST3K movies to laugh at and want to get a group of people around and have fun thats what this movie is good for. December 5, 2005

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