DeepStar Six (Blu-ray Review)
- Review Date: Sep 17, 2025
- Format: Blu-ray Disc
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Director
Sean S. CunninghamRelease Date(s)
1989 (September 30, 2025)Studio(s)
Carolco Pictures/TriStar Pictures (Kino Lorber Studio Classics)- Film/Program Grade: C+
- Video Grade: B+
- Audio Grade: B
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
DeepStar Six may not have been the best underwater adventure film to be released in 1989, but at least it had the virtue of being first. James Cameron’s The Abyss was actually greenlit before any of the rest, but that legendarily troubled shoot went so far over schedule and over budget that it created the unusual situation where a wave of imitators that had been rushed into production in order to cash in on its (presumed) box office success ended up beating it into the theatres. Not counting direct-to-video titles, DeepStar Six was released in January, Leviathan in March, Lords of the Deep in April, and The Abyss finally caught up with them in August. Yet being among first three out of the gate is no guarantee of winning the race, and ultimately The Abyss was the only one that managed to make much of a splash (sorry) at the box office—although it’s still one of Cameron’s least successful films. Apparently, late Eighties audiences weren’t as eager to plumb the ocean’s depths as many filmmakers thought they would be.
DeepStar Six wasn’t the cheapest of the four underwater thrillers in 1989—that honor goes to the Roger Corman produced Lords of the Deep—but it was close, and yet it actually has the most direct connection to the mega-budgeted The Abyss out of all the rest. Not so much in terms of story, since aside from sharing similar settings on a variety of undersea habitats, they all pretty much take their own paths. No, the real connection was in terms of who came up with the story for DeepStar Six: Lewis Abernathy, who was a friend of Cameron’s and doubtless was well aware of the long-gestating story for The Abyss. (Whatever friction that may have created between the two of them must have been resolved in short order, since the larger-than-life Abernathy ended up making a memorable appearance in Titanic several years later as Bill Paxton’s sidekick.) If anything, the imitators have more in common with each other than they do with The Abyss, since they’re all creature features of one sort or another. What sets DeepStar Six apart is that it keeps its own monster off screen for as long as possible, but more on that in a moment.
The shooting script for DeepStar Six by Abernathy and Geof Miller is set on an experimental underwater base built by the U.S. Navy. While it serves as way to test the viability of undersea colonies, the crew’s real mission is to build a nuclear missile platform on the bottom of the ocean—and they’re behind schedule, too, with the Navy threatening to pull the plug on the whole project. So, Commander Laidlaw (Taurean Blacque) and Dr. Van Gelder (Marius Weyers) agree to cut a few corners, and they accidentally open up a cavern in the ocean floor teaming with life that hasn’t made contact with anything else for ages. Dr. Scarpelli (Nia Peeples) wants to investigate, but when sub pilots Hodges (Thom Bray) and Osborne (Ronn Carroll) go missing in the cavern, it starts a chain of events that puts all of their lives at risk. DeepStar Six also stars Nancy Everhard, Cindy Pickett, Miguel Ferrer (of course), Greg Evigan, Matt McCoy, and Elya Baskin—the latter starring as yet another ill-fated Russian scientist five years after 2010: The Year We Make Contact. (Apparently, making contact was never a good idea for him.)
Most of the characters aren’t particularly interesting, although Ferrer, McCoy, and Bray do manage to bring a bit of personality to their roles (and Ferrer makes a memorably unpleasant exit from the story, too). However, depth of characterization is a bonus in an underwater thriller, not a requirement. And considering that this is actually an underwater creature feature, the characters become even less important. Films like this are all about tension, the believability of the setting, and the cool factor with the monster. In those regards, DeepStar Six is... well, adequate, anyway. Working with barely a third of the budget that Leviathan had (let alone the out-of-control budget of The Abyss), producer/director Sean S. Cunningham, production designer John Reinhart, visual effects supervisor James Isaac, and makeup artists Chris Walas and Mark Shostrom did the best that they could with the limited resources that they had.
The Abyss worked as well as it did regardless of any narrative shortcomings thanks to the fact that it required no suspension of disbelief whatsoever that the Deepcore was really on the bottom of the ocean. Leviathan did an impressive job with its dry-for-wet sets and miniatures that may not have been quite as convincing, but the setting was still credible enough. DeepStar Six falls more into the Lords of the Deep category. The combination of dry-for-wet and wet-for-wet effects are undone a bit by focus issues and a lack of overcranking that ruins the sense of scale—a few shots were step-printed after the fact to simulate slow motion, but it doesn’t really help. As a result, the miniature effects do have an Eiji Tsuburaya look to them, but that adds to their charm if you’re in the right frame of mind. As far as the monster goes, it suffers from the fact that they really didn’t have one, just bits and pieces that are never seen together as a whole. So, editor David Handman had to pretty much cut the main character out of the film, which doesn’t help. If you’re looking for a monster in this monster movie, you’re going to have to look pretty hard.
Still, like monster movie fans in general, underwater thriller fans are a forgiving lot, and there’s just enough going on in DeepStar Six to keep the faithful happy. (And watching Miguel Ferrer explode is always a bonus, as Paul Verhoeven had already demonstrated so well in Robocop.) The Abyss, it isn’t, Leviathan, it isn’t, but hey, it’s also not Lords of the Deep. So, at least there’s that.
Veteran Empire Pictures cinematographer Mac Ahlberg shot DeepStar Six on 35mm film (in Super-35 format) using spherical lenses. The resulting flat negative was then blown up optically for anamorphic release prints that were framed at 2.39:1. This version uses a new master supplied by StudioCanal, which is based on 4K scans of the original camera negative. Kino Lorber’s 2020 Blu-ray release utilized an older master that looked like it was derived from an interpositive instead, and the improvements are substantial. Still, it’s important to judge things with measured expectations, because the optical work in DeepStar Six leaves something to be desired. A significant quantity of the visual effects shots are composites of one form or another, so they’re derived from dupe elements, and they’ve always looked particularly coarse in any iteration of the film. A fresh 4K scan can’t work any wonders there, but the bulk of the film still looks much sharper, cleaner, and more detailed than it ever has before (although it’s a slight step down from Kino Lorber’s UHD version that was released earlier this year). It’s not a dazzling upgrade over the old Blu-ray, but it’s an improvement nonetheless, and it always looks natural and filmic.
(Note that while Kino’s UHD for DeepStar Six did have a mastering and/or encoding error where a shot of the sub docking with the observation pod at the beginning of the film was inadvertently repeated, the issue isn’t present on their Blu-ray version.)
Audio is offered in English 5.1 and 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio, with optional English subtitles. DeepStar Six was released theatrically in Dolby Stereo, and the 2.0 track does appear to be the theatrical mix, not a fold-down of the new 5.1. That’s good, because there’s another error in the 5.1 track. While it appears to have some minor bass sweetening, in all other respects it’s not really a new mix but just a discrete encoding of the original matrixed four channels. Or at least it should be, but in this case the center channel information has bled strongly into the surround channels. The dialogue and any center channel sound effects are loud enough in the surrounds that it has the effect of pulling them forward into the room instead of remaining anchored to the center speaker. That doesn’t happen in the 2.0 track, which seems identical to the 2.0 mix on the old Blu-ray. Aside from the bass sweetening, the 5.1 track doesn’t add any split surround activity or change anything else, so you’re better off sticking with 2.0 (just don’t forget to engage your decoder). It’s not an aggressive mix, but there’s enough ambient effects in the surrounds to keep it feeling immersive, and Harry Manfredini’s score provides plenty of creepy ambience of its own.
Kino Lorber’s standalone Blu-ray release of DeepStar Six includes a reversible insert featuring alternate theatrical poster artwork on each side, and there’s also a slipcover duplicating the A-side artwork. The following extras are included:
- Audio Commentary by James G. Chandler and Ash Hamilton
- Audio Commentary by Sean S. Cunningham and James Isaac
- Audio Commentary by Lewis Abernathy and Geof Miller
- Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with Harry Manfredini
- From the Deep (HD – 21:37)
- The Survivors (HD – 16:43)
- Water Damage (HD – 12:42)
- Original EPK (Upscaled SD – 3:36)
- Extended Vintage Interview Clips (Upscaled SD – 8:27)
- Behind-the-Scenes Footage (Upscaled SD – 4:10)
- Image Gallery (HD – 16:15)
- TV Spot (Upscaled SD – :34)
- Trailers:
- DeepStar Six (Upscaled SD – 1:58)
- Leviathan (HD – 1:54)
- Deep Rising (SD – 1:25)
- Below (SD – 2:27)
In addition to porting over all of the archival commentary tracks, Kino Lorber has added a new one with James G. Chandler and Ash Hamilton from Horror-Fix.com. They do spend some time going into the complicated history of the underwater genre in 1989 and what sets DeepStar Six apart from the rest (for good or for ill). They’re generally pretty complimentary to what Cunningham and his crew managed to pull off with a low budget, although they’re happy to point out a few quirks (like the fact that bras don’t seem to exist in this particular underwater environment). They also go over the cast and crew, giving extra attention to Abernathy and his Cameron connections, as well as some love for the late Miguel Ferrer. While there isn’t necessarily a lot of depth here, it’s still a fun commentary from a couple of fans of the film.
The commentary with Abernathy and Miller was recorded for Kino’s previous 2020 Blu-ray. It’s... well, let’s just say that it’s not the kind of track that usually appears on offerings from major studios. They’re unrestrained and uncensored, and freely make comments that studio lawyers would normally quash. (Thank God this isn’t an MGM title.) They sound like they might have had a few before they sat down to record, and if so, more power to them. They’re only too happy to note any and all issues with DeepStar Six, from conception to production, including their own scientific and narrative wonkiness, as well as the inadequacy of some of the visual effects. If watching DeepStar Six requires being in the right frame of mind, then Abernathy and Miller are the perfect guides to creating that mindset.
The last two commentaries include an Isolated Score track with Harry Manfredini (moderated by Micheal Felsher) that was also added for Kino’s 2020 Blu-ray, as well as the original 2001 DVD commentary that was included on a couple of overseas releases but appears to have been omitted from the domestic Artisan discs. They’re the yin to Chandler, Hamilton, Abernathy, and Miller’s yang, fairly dry and technical, and they frequently lapse into lengthy silences. It’s nice to have it included for archival purposes, but you’re better off starting with the other three tracks first.
There are also three relatively recent featurettes consisting of interviews that were recorded for the 2020 Blu-ray, all of them produced by Felsher’s Red Shirt Pictures. From the Deep is with Mark Shostrom, Greg Nicotero, and Robert Kurtzman, discussing the creation and operation of the little-seen monster—Shostrom openly acknowledges that you never saw it with all the pieces together because the whole thing only existed in pieces. (They also cover some of the gore effects like Miguel Ferrer’s unpleasant exit.) The Survivors is with Greg Evigan and Nancy Everhard, who relate their experiences on set including the challenges of working with water. Water Damage is with stunt coordinator and perpetual fan favorite Kane Hodder, who dives even deeper (sorry again) into the challenges of staging action scenes and stunt work in the water.
Aside from a collection of Trailers and an Image Gallery, the rest of the extras consist of vintage press materials like the original EPK featurette and extended versions of the interviews that it contains. There’s also an extended collection of behind-the-scenes footage from the press materials. That’s nearly everything from previous versions of DeepStar Six, making this as definitive a release as we’re likely to get. The bleed from the center channel in the 5.1 track may be an issue for some people (although no one else seems to have mentioned it so far), but I still recommend the 2.0 track anyway. So, if you’re not yet 4K capable and don’t want to shell out the money for Kino Lorber’s UHD/Blu-ray combo pack, then this solo Blu-ray version is definitely the one to get.
- Stephen Bjork
(You can follow Stephen on social media at these links: Twitter, Facebook, BlueSky, and Letterboxd).