I’ll admit it: monster movies aren’t for everyone. You have to enjoy being terrified by the idea of being eclipsed by another living being. You have to be comfortable with caring less about the characters in front of you than you do about what’s lurking around the next corner. And perhaps above all, you’ve gotta be able to suspend belief, even setting aside your most basic understanding of what’s scientifically possible. But if you’re still with me here and you’re ready to dive in, you’ll have an absolute blast watching Underwater.
Set in the not-too-distant-future, Underwater takes 
place at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where a drilling company has set up shop over seven miles below the ocean’s surface. Grinding into the earth at depths never-before attempted, a crew measures time not by day and night, but by the hours of their shifts, trying to make life as normal as possible in a place where “unexplained abnormalities” in drilling have been recorded. We first meet Norah, a bleached and buzzed Kristen Stewart, in the middle of her regular daily routine, but the station’s carefully-pressurized seal is soon compromised and all hell (or hull?) breaks loose. Norah finds herself in a mad dash for survival, picking up coworkers and friends along the way as they clamor through the wreckage along the sea floor toward an escape. However, it’s not long before the crew realizes that something else may be down there with them, and that they may have bigger fish to fry.
Stewart leads a ragtag cast full of heist film villains and former sitcom stars in this horror flick that shamelessly does little to develop its characters, but instead throws you into the action like you’re one of the crew. You piece together enough of the protagonists’ pasts throughout the film to understand their basic backgrounds, but in a movie like this, let’s be honest, everyone’s motivation is the same: they all simply want to survive and the rest is just window dressing. This is one of the first reasons I like this film so much – it never tries to be something it’s not. Instead of forcing us to sit through cheesy chats about kids and careers, we can get right to the explosions and figure out the rest along the way.
And boy, were there explosions. A compromised structure at that depth means big, powerful, life-threatening, and often gory blasts. It’s actually hard to fathom what the 
pressure must be like that many, well, fathoms below sea level, but you know it can’t be good. For this reason, the setting alone makes every creak of metal and every crack of glass that much more terrifying.
And then you have the water. If you’ve ever squinted down into murky ocean waves and wondered what lurks below, shuddered at the graze of seaweed along your shin while swimming in lake water, or peered out into the sea through a diving mask even at manageable depths, you can empathize with the fear this film evokes so effectively. There’s nothing quite like being here on planet earth but still entirely out of your element, recognizing that almost everything around you—whether you can see it through the darkness or not— is better adapted to its environment than you are.
And that, dear readers, brings us to the monster part of this monster movie. I won’t give
anything away here, but I’ll just say that Underwater left my mouth agape more than once, and is one of the more satisfying monster films I’ve seen since Godzilla (2014) or even Cloverfield. It plays effectively with camera angles and sound to throw you right into the scene without pulling you back out by overdoing the CGI. The pacing is nonstop, with new challenges at every turn and fun reveals just when you think you know what’s coming.
Is this film for everyone? No. If you’re looking for deeply complex characters, an entirely new take on the man vs. beast storyline, or scientifically-probable details, this isn’t the film for you. But let’s be honest, if you’re on the hunt for that, what in God’s name are you doing seeing a monster movie anyway?
SpecialK Verdict: See it on the biggest screen you can find with the best quality sound, and dive in. Expect little, enjoy being pleasantly surprised, and have a blast.
Underwater opens nationwide on Friday, January 10.
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