Sea Fever Review

We're not halfway into 2020, and we already have another aquatic creature-feature. First was January's "Underwater," which ripped off "Alien" and then dunked it into the ocean, and now we have "Sea Fever," which riffs on 1982's "The Thing." Only it's a smaller, more intimate affair in cinematic exploitation.

"Sea Fever" doesn't have many ideas that are it's own, and what it doesn't steal from John Carpenter's gory shocker it lifts from, what else, "Alien." But by debuting outside of the theater due to quarantine, this pandemic-at-sea thriller is a comfortable way to pass an afternoon.

Hermione Corfield stars as a very redheaded Siobhan, who joins a fishing barge to study abnormalities in their catch for class credits. (And yes, her hair color really does matter to the crew of the ship.) She doesn't fit in when we first find here in the lab, and she struggles to find her social place once aboard the craft; she consumes herself in her work. But soon something latches to the underside of the vessel, and a few mandatory monster-movie moments later, the mass beneath the boat disappears, but not before exposing everyone to a mysterious infection.

For all it's influences, a lot of the fat is trimmed from those earlier pictures, with a primary cast of just seven and very few occasions of people standing around talking about how to deal with the situation; once an idea is brought up, it's either immediately shot down or performed. This is a very lean series of unadulterated execution.

There is not much gore, save for one brief gruesome death, and wisely there are no jump or false scares. Director Neasa Hardiman does a decent job avoiding the most obvious cliches, as well as at creating a claustrophobic environment for the unmagnificent seven to exist in. But this is clearly an economically budgeted production, and she struggles finding the film it's own personality. You can see the ending from a mile away, as well the general order of deaths. And every time an old idea is recycled into something with a spark of creativity, it settles on established genre-expectations without enough exploration.

"Sea Fever" is timely but ultimately undemanding and underwhelming. No one may be able to hear you scream, but everyone can see your inspiration.