20 GREAT Monster Movies NOBODY Talks About

16. Deep Rising

Deep Rising Treat Williams Famke Janssen
Buena Vista Pictures

From one 1998 Famke Janssen outing to another...

Some of these films may have earned something of a cult following in the years since their release, but generally deserve wider acclaim. No one is trying to say Deep Rising should have earned any Oscars or anything, but there is a fun time to be had with it.

The Stephen Sommers-led effort came out in 1998, and much like his following film, 1999's The Mummy, it is a time capsule of everything '90s. While this can be taken as both a compliment and a drawback, it is undoubtedly an action-adventure romp that doesn't take itself too seriously, is at times wonderfully cheesy, and if this is what an audience goes in wanting, it can be incredibly entertaining.

Pitting the characters against a behemoth largely in the open water with little to no escape certainly presents a decent amount of thrills, helped along by CGI that is impressive, particularly for the time. 

Arguably, Deep Rising has become better known as a failed franchise launch, as the final moments were supposedly to lead into a King Kong project before Peter Jackson's 20025 Kong effort. But as a standalone popcorn flick, it ticks every box it needs to.

 
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