Deep Blue Sea has been gaining more attention since a petition was launched by fans to restore the film’s original ending. We look back at the best shark horror film to come out of Hollywood since Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.
Warning: Spoilers for all of Deep Blue Sea!
I think we can all agree that Steven Spielberg’s breakthrough film Jaws is about the best eco horror film of all time, and the best shark film of all time. Jaws has made an irreversible, humongous mark on popular culture and it genuinely made people scared to go in the water. It also holds impeccably after all these years.
However, some have found fault in how the film treats sharks. Many complained that Jaws demonised them for no reason, but the film also inspired a lot of real life research on them (and Spielberg too has expressed some regret about the demonisation). No pain, no gain?
Yet another shark film premiered in cinemas back in 1999 and remains one of the best in an oversaturated market. Renny Harlin’s Deep Blue Sea, released 25 years ago this week, and its take on the genre is subtly different from Jaws. In both films, sharks are the real, tangible threat but it’s the humans on the shore that are the real villains.
The events of Deep Blue Sea take place in an underwater facility where Dr. Susan McCallister (Saffron Burrows), along with her team, are researching mako sharks for a potential Alzheimer’s cure. We’ll cut to the good part; McAlister and Stellan Skarsgård’s Jim genetically engineered the sharks to be bigger and by accident, deadlier and more intelligent. Cue much chaos and some truly memorable deaths.
Perhaps the most memorable death in the film is Samuel L. Jackson’s. Jackson plays Russell Franklin, your basic corporate guy sent to make sure you’re using the money wisely.
Around the film’s halfway mark, the group’s unity is breaking as their options become increasingly limited and death looms behind every door. After Michael Rapaport’s Scoggings and McCallister get into an argument over what route to take to the surface, Russell delivers an impassioned speech about working together to get out alive. The camera stays close to his face as Jackson commands the scene. Just as Russell tells the group they’re going to seal the pool of water behind him to prevent further flooding, a huge shark drags him into the pool and the sharks devour him.
It’s a bold move from Harlin. Jackson was the only notable star in the cast and killing him off is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Wes Craven’s Scream. It’s the kind of visceral move that most modern Hollywood films are scared of doing on screen. It also ups the stakes immediately; if you can kill off the most expensive actor in your roster, everyone else is expendable too.
At the end of the film, when most of the team have been eaten by the sharks, McAlister sacrifices herself to help defeat the final shark, which is attempting to escape the facility to the sea.
Renny Harlin told Mandatory in 2013 that the film originally had a different ending, one where McCallister survives and shares a triumphant kiss with Thomas Jane’s shark wrangler Carter Blake. The ending did not satisfy audiences at test screenings and Harlin knows why.
“Basically what had happened was that the audience felt so deeply that the scientist character, the woman who was behind the whole experiment with the sharks, that it was all her fault. In their minds, she was the bad guy and in our minds, she was the heroine and we thought saving her was the key. Basically, we had test cards that said, ‘Kill the bitch.’ It was an amazing revelation,” Harlin explained to Mandatory.
The ending was re-shot with McCallister biting the bullet and Carter and LL Cool J’s cook Preacher surviving their ordeal. A petition was launched in 2019 to restore the original ending and it’s gained more traction in recent years. At the time of writing, the petition has over 3500 signatures.
The petition reads: “The character of the film, Dr. Susan McAlester (Saffron Burrows) was recalled as a villain for her actions throughout the film, but it was already addressed in the film’s deleted scenes (and the film itself) that she wasn’t suppose to be. She regretted her decisions, and felt terrible after what she caused. And, for her to be the one who kills the shark at the end of the film made more sense to have her character arc completely resolved, and redeemed, other than having her die off for audience pleasure.”
We hate to be the party poopers, but… McCallister is clearly the villain here! Whereas Jaws was a clear warning against human arrogance and our helplessness against Mother Nature, Deep Blue Sea is a direct warning not to mess with nature, ever, in any way, similarly to the original Jurassic Park.
Other shark films have come and gone, but none of them have managed to repeat the entertainment value, spectacle and terror of Deep Blue Sea. Jaume Collet-Serra’s The Shallows deserves a special mention as an underrated shark film, but the subgenre of horror has proven tricky to master. Filmmakers like Hayley Easton Street and Jon Turteltaub have valiantly tried to crack the specific code of making sharks scary again, with varying results.
Harlin is returning to the genre with next year’s Deep Water, which is set to star Aaron Eckhart and Sir Ben Kingsley. Harlin told Film Stories earlier this year that Deep Water will be “the ultimate shark film”. If it’s anywhere near as effective as Deep Blue Sea, we’ll take it.
