Up from the Depths

Up From the Depths
Theatrical poster
Directed by Charles B. Griffith
Produced by Jack Atienza
Cirio H. Santiago
Written by Anne Dyer
Alfred Sweeney
Starring Sam Bottoms
Susanne Reed
Virgil Frye
Kedric Wolfe
Charles Howerton
Music by Russell O'Malley
Cinematography Ricardo Remias
Edited by G. V. Bass
Distributed by New World Pictures
Shout Factory (DVD)
Release date
  • June 29, 1979 (1979-06-29)
Running time
 75 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Box office Unknown

Up From the Depths is a 1979 horror film directed by Charles B. Griffith. The film, along with many other natural horror films at the time of its release, was made due to the success of Jaws, to which it is very similar.

Plot

The staff and vacationers at a first-class resort on the island of Maui are beginning to mysteriously disappear. A biologist believes that an underwater earthquake has caused a giant and very hungry dormant prehistoric fish to be released from its slumber. The fish voraciously helps itself to a tourist buffet. Now it is open season for the local fishermen to find and kill the creature.

Production

Charles B Griffith later called making the film a "terrible experience".

We had it written by one of the typists or secretaries in the office who didn't have any thoughts of becoming a writer. I think Roger did it to punish me, to send me out to The Philippines where I didn't know what I was getting into. I was making an action picture, but The Philippines people were all so depressed, and they had made this goofy-looking fish with bug eyes. I told them that we'll make it a comedy, and their eyes lit up! So I sent back a comedy on one plane, and I arrived on the next one. By the time I arrived, Roger had already cut 75 minutes out. As an editor would say, "That's a set-up, that's a payoff!"[1]

Cast

Release

The film was released theatrically in the United States by New World Pictures in June 1979, and later released on VHS by Vestron Video in the 1980s.

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray by Shout Factory in 2011 as a double feature alongside the similar Demon of Paradise.

References

  1. ↑ Aaron W. Graham, 'Little Shop of Genres: An interview with Charles B. Griffith', Senses of Cinema, 15 April, 2005 accessed 25 June 2012
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