Amphibious 3D (2010)

I hope Brian Yuzna one day write his memoires, because he's a director/producer who really fought all his life to make genre cinema, and only that. Some stuff was bad and some stuff was really good. After a sejour in Spain together with Fantastic Film Factory he took his bags and went even more far away and ended up in Indonesia, of all places in the world! After producing the anthology movie Takut (2008) he found some Dutch investors and made his most ambitious film in years, Amphibious3D! And... what the hell happen? This was released in 2010 and still not good distribution! I mean, if every crappy SyFy Channel movie gets a blu-ray release, why is this one totally forgotten? Distributors, do your fucking job and give this a fat release!

Michael Paré plays the grumpy Captain Jack Bowman, who works in Indonesia, taking every job he can find to get some money. Marine biologist Skylar Shane (Janna Fassaert) hires him to go out on an expedition to find prehistoric fossils. Out on the sea they bump in to some of Jack's old buddies, a gang of smugglers pretending to be fishermen. They have their base on an old house sitting on top of a wooden platform. But something has awoken in the sea, and Progeny one of the smugglers - a little boy - has supernatural powers and taking revenge on the death of his friend by controlling a huge underwater scorpion! Well, you can guess what happens next...

If you go into this movie expecting an original story with amazing dialogue and characters from a Scorsese movie - then you can turn around and watch something else. But if you want - and appreciate - a good old monster movie this is the movie for you. First of all, I love the setting in Indonesia, deeply connected to local believes and traditions and some beautiful locations. Most of the movie is set on the house/platform-thingie, but the set design is excellent and never takes away the illusion of being stuck somewhere at sea.

The monster is BIG, so it's nothing that hides around in the house killing people. It mostly uses it's tail to impale baddies, or just rip them apart. Or stick it in the head of some ugly mother... or cut and decapitate! Yeah, Amphibious delivers on the gore and blood-front and I for one is very grateful for that. This is not a bloodless SyFy production! I love the mix of practical effects and CG and even if I've seen better animations in cheaper movies, the scorpion looks great and fits the style of the movie.

Compared to Yuzna's two last movies in Spain, Beneath Still Waters and Rottweiler, this is actually a very slick movie. The other two had scripts that desperately tried to be something different, something unique - but failed miserably! It was also obvious that Yuzna didn't put his soul into the stories and the end result was boring like hell. Amphibious 3D is a lot more fun. The simple storyline and few locations gives Yuzna an opportunity to shine with his visual talents and work a little bit more with the actors. I would say this is Yuzna's best movie since 1998's Progeny (and even The Dentist 2 from the same year).

Now I just wish this movie got distribution, everywhere. I would love a blu-ray for example! I'm sure a lot creature feature fans out there would love to give this is a spin more than one time!