31 Days of Halloween: Sea Fever

2019, Neasa Hardiman (Jessica Jones) -- download

The premise I was sold on this movie, reading another blog, was body-horror and a The Thing style invasive species. Yeah, not so much. What we got was a decently done, rather straight forward infection movie with some monstrous, otherworldly aspects. Alas, by the third act, the movie derailed itself by having the characters acting in ludicrous fashion, which was not at all related to the "sea fever" the movie is named for.

Siobhán is a college student, quiet and nervous, an on-the-spectrum researcher so stereotypical in scientists in pop culture. She is assigned to an Irish fishing trawler, a beat up, down on its luck boat making some money by allowing her on board, to study marine behavioural anomalies in the fishing industry. The captain ignores warnings of an "exclusion zone" and sails into those waters, because he and his crew need a good catch. But it is them that are caught, by an unknown creature, all jelly-fish with tentacles that ooze through their hull.

That was the movie I was hoping for, but it so quickly strays from that. The giant jellyfish lets them go, but not before it infects their water with wee parasites. Wounded Johnny gets infected, gets sick and then his eyes explode. Poor Johnny. And poor Siobhán who was getting over her anti-socialness for his manly fisherman appeal. The rest of the crew freaks out, naturally.

The problem is the further reaction. You would think a scientist would want to get to shore ASAP, so they could be isolated and tested and research performed --- you know, sciency type stuff that saves their lives? But no, she goes down the watery apocalypse path, a page taken from the Alien series, where "if this thing gets to land, it will end the world". Why? Nothing they experienced showed it was mass migrating. If so, it would only be a matter of time before the big jelly parasite mama reached shallow waters and spread onto land.

In the end, the remaining crew, burn the boat and are left in a lifeboat. When they see another vessel approaching, they are all joyous, despite Siobhán's earlier desire to avoid all civilization. Bleah. Just bleah. So, despite the decent performances, and a closed room environment I really liked, the movie just disappointed me.