Underwater is the kind of movie that slipped past almost everyone, and that’s a shame. It landed in January 2020, a month studios use for films they aren’t backing, and vanished fast. If you missed it, go back.
Kristen Stewart plays Norah, a mechanical engineer on a drilling station seven miles down in the Mariana Trench. Five minutes in, the place starts cracking apart. There’s no slow buildup and no warm-up. The movie throws you straight into the panic and almost never lets you breathe.
The survival plan sounds simple: Norah and a handful of crew members have to walk across the ocean floor to another station. Nothing goes right. The suits are heavy, the water is pitch black, the air is running low, and something is moving out there.
Stewart is great. She’s tough without turning into an action hero, and you believe every terrified breath she takes. Vincent Cassel brings a calm, fatherly weight as the captain, while T.J. Miller cuts the gloom with his jokes and a stuffed bunny he carries around for no good reason.
The creature work is genuinely creepy, and the final reveal goes far bigger than you’d expect. If you know your monster stories, you’ll be grinning.
Kill the lights and crank the sound. This one deserved a much bigger audience.
