Many modern Lovecraftian movies like to unveil their cosmic horror slowly. William Eubank’s 2020 Underwater takes this technique to the next level. What first comes off as a thriller, Underwater ultimately has all the markers for a classic eldritch nightmare. The claustrophobia serves as an existential dread and Cthulhu himself makes an appearance. Kristen Stewart stars as Norah Price, an underwater engineer working at a mysterious drilling compound. When the compound suffers catastrophic failure from an unseen force, Norah gathers the survivors and embarks on a mission to find escape pods. Underwater slipped under the radar, but for a film that makes several bold twists on classic Lovecraftian staples, it deserves more attention for innovation at the very least…
I really liked this movie, it is fairly light on plot or character development but what it does well it does really well and that is ratchet up the tension and escalation of the creature reveals until finally revealing the classic lovecraftian horror in its final act.