Life Finds A Way
Shark-attack movies can remind us to resist the hubristic belief that we can control the wild, and to instead respect the power of nature.
Review by Brigitta Nortker
I never understood the popularity of horror movies. The idea of purposely signing up for a movie aiming to make you jump or fill you with dread really didn’t appeal to me. But then I realized that shark-attack movies are my version of horror movies, and suddenly I got it: there’s something about being terrified that really makes you feel alive. And though you know there are certain notes that will be hit, you can’t wait to see how this new movie will deliver. When will the shark unexpectedly come from below and chomp someone? Who provides the comedic relief between jump scares? How is someone unexpectedly thrown off the boat? Why would anyone dangle their foot in the water? Who masters harpoon throwing on their first attempt and nails the shark with a dynamite-laden spear at the end?
Whenever people ask me what some of my favorite movies are, they always seem a bit taken aback when I count Deep Blue Sea in my top ten. Maybe it seems a bit out of place next to titles like Mad Max: Fury Road, Lord of the Rings, and Beauty and the Beast (the Disney 1991 version, obviously), but I unabashedly love this cult classic. Honestly, I love a creature feature in general. This is probably because the second movie I ever saw in theaters was Jurassic Park, at the tender age of four with my dad. Was I too young to see a man get eaten by a T-Rex while he was cowering in a bathroom stall? Absolutely. But in my dad’s defense, he didn’t want to see Lion King again and my mom was shopping—he basically had no choice. Although he may have regretted it when velociraptors haunted my nightmares for the next few months, resulting in many long nights in which I would come running into my parents’ bedroom, convinced I was about to be eaten.
For a while, any movies that looked scary were an automatic no for me, until, a few years later, I was given one of those giant illustrated books about the ocean and I became absolutely fascinated by sharks. With their constant thirst for blood, they seemed like the most terrifying thing in the ocean, and they captured my imagination. I developed a very healthy respect for large bodies of water and knew without a doubt that I did not belong in them. (You can imagine what it was like for my parents to take me to the beach. Hint: constantly scanning the horizon for unfriendly dorsal fins.)
The wild—whether it’s the ocean, a mountain range, or a living creature that naturally thrives in either of those environments—reminds me how fragile I really am. How important it is to respect the things I cannot control and how little I actually do control. I think this is probably why I’ll take a shark movie over a classic horror movie any day. There’s always an element of human hubris attached to the watery narrative.
The idea that we can control the wild feels like a fatal flaw in being human.
Deep Blue Sea perfectly encapsulates this. Scientists with the noble goal of curing Alzheimer’s with the brain proteins from Mako sharks (which can regenerate neurons—actual true science!) realize that they can’t harvest enough of the necessary protein without killing the sharks, so they genetically alter the sharks to become bigger, and enlarge their brains in the process. No surprise to those of us who signed up for this movie, there are some major ramifications to increasing the size of the sharks’ brains: they get smarter.
The movie starts off with one of the genetically modified sharks breaking out of the supposedly secure facility and attacking an innocent boat. Thankfully, shark wrangler Carter arrives just in time to shoot the shark with a tranquilizer gun before anyone gets eaten. That beginning gives us an idea of what the sharks actually want, and that Carter is the only character in the underwater laboratory who thinks something is amiss with their behavior. About a third of the way into the movie, as our cast of characters has continued to shrink and everyone left alive acknowledges that the flooding of the underwater facility isn’t just a series of random accidents, a question surfaces: “What does an 8,000-pound Mako shark with a brain the size of a flat head V8 engine and no natural predators think about?” There’s a moment of silence as everyone reckons with the fact that the sharks are thinking and do have a goal in mind. But the moment quickly passes as the shark attacks re-commence.
Eventually, the remaining three characters (and one remaining shark) make it out of the lab and to the surface. Thus far, the humans had thought that, though they were scared and desperate, they were nevertheless in control—devising plans to escape and neutralize the sharks, while fending off attacks and cleverly adapting to setbacks and obstacles along the way. But now comes the answer to the question of what that remaining shark thinks about—the deep blue sea—as Carter realizes that they’ve been herded to the surface, where the above-water fences are ordinary steel and much easier to destroy than the titanium cages below. The sharks weren’t thinking about revenge, or wanton destruction. They, too, were thinking about freedom—about escape. And, to use a line from Jurassic Park, “life finds a way.”
The idea that we can control the wild feels like a fatal flaw in being human. In many of these movies there’s usually a point where the main character outsmarts nature. They might walk away with more respect for the wild, but they’ve still “won.” At least this time around. But how realistic is that? And is that also part of the appeal of these movies, that we always place ourselves in the role of survivor who dominates nature?
In the final edit, the only characters to make it out alive in Deep Blue Sea are the ones who respected what they were up against.
Maybe that’s another reason why this movie hits me the way it does. Susan, the scientist who has been the driving force behind this research, has refused all along to admit that she made a mistake, despite Carter’s attempts at reasoning with her. It’s not until she’s watching the final shark start to ram through the surface fence that she seems to acknowledge she’s created something that must be stopped, despite the possibility that it could do good.
Even her last line in the movie shows a lack of respect toward the shark she engineered, “She may be the smartest animal in the world, but she’s still just an animal. Come to mama.” With those words she slices her hand with a (truly horrifying) rusty piece of metal and jumps into the water, betting on the shark’s hunter instincts to override the desire for freedom. And her gamble pays off at first, the shark turns around and follows the scent of blood as Susan quickly swims toward a convenient ladder. As she starts to haul herself out of the water, the first rung breaks and she can’t reach the next. She dives back under, watching the shark’s approach and seeming to accept her fate, right before the shark pauses for half a second and then viciously chomps her on the way back to the fence.
What’s really interesting here is that in the original ending of the movie, Susan survived. It was only after they started showing the movie to test audiences that the filmmakers realized that audiences didn’t want to see Susan survive. In the final edit, the only characters to make it out alive in Deep Blue Sea are the ones who respected what they were up against: Carter and Preacher. Yes, their survival instincts kicked in and they fought to survive, but they always accepted that there was a very real chance they might not. Even though they were the exception, they thought of themselves as the rule. Which serves as an excellent reminder to all of us to think similarly. And stay the hell out of the ocean.
Brigitta Nortker is the Editorial Director for Nelson Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Christian Publishers. In addition to shark movies, she enjoys coffee shops, breweries, book stores, and traveling to see friends. She lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Deep Blue Sea was released on July 28, 1999. It was directed by Renny Harlin and written by Duncan Kennedy and Donna and Wayne Powers. It was distributed by Warner Bros. You can rent it on Amazon Prime.
