Sea Fever (2020) Review!!

Synopsis – The crew of a West of Ireland trawler, marooned at sea, struggle for their lives against a growing parasite in their water supply.

My Take – Unfortunately we live in a time where almost everything we see or hear in films and TV series ends up drawing parallels to the state of the peril we are all living in. And like the saying goes – ‘with every disaster comes an equal opportunity’, a number of genre films inspired by the current worldwide pandemic are being released online irrespective of their quality and or any form of sensitivity.

However, this timely sea based pandemic horror film, which received a wave of positive fest buzz over the past year, from Irish filmmaker Neasa Hardiman, who is mostly known for directing a handful of episodes of Marvel shows like Jessica Jones and Inhumans, is one of the better works to be cut from the same cloth.

Though heavily influenced by Alien (1979), The Thing (1982), and to some extend this year’s Kristen Stewart led big-budget blockbuster Underwater, the film manages to be entirely its own beast as it incorporates body-horror with elements of a creature-feature garnished with some eco-friendly themes, albeit with a darkly expedient and resolutely downbeat twist.

Sure, its broader genre beats also offer nothing we haven’t seen before, but it still feels like its own thing with its own things to say, and most importantly manages to hold-fast tension in place to keep it above surface level, unlike many others, for example the above mentioned Underwater.

The story follows Siobhán (Hermione Corfield), a socially awkward and introvert marine biology student, who in order to gain practical experience outside the lab is forced by her professor to join a fishing boat, Niamh Chinn-Óir, owned by Freya (Connie Nielsen) and captained by her husband Gerard (Dougray Scott). While her presence causes immediate concern with the crew due to her red hair (which is considered bad luck at sea), Siobhan finds herself receiving a warmer welcome from the engineer Omid (Ardalan Esmaili) and Johnny (Jack Hickey), who takes a liking to her.

While her focus remains studying the abnormalities in the region, unknown to her, the boat has been struggling financially. In order to get them out of the predicament, Gerard, while tracking a huge shoal of fish, which he believes will change their luck, sails the boat into an exclusion zone, without telling anyone.

But no sooner than he does that, the boat finds itself entangled by a strange creature with huge tentacles arising from the deep, which seems to be burrowing into the boat, holding them strongly in one place. And when it becomes apparent that the tentacles are also secreting dangerous microscopic parasites onto the boat, the crew find themselves in a fight for survival, as they realize that they are slowly becoming infected.

There’s some undeniable similarities to filmmaker John Carpenter’s The Thing here, with an isolated group of people who may or may not be infected with a deadly organism, but luckily the film stands on its own as a tense experience. It’s more understated than Carpenter’s classic, and could have probably used one or two more set pieces, but the even pacing keeps it from becoming dull, engaging the audience at every turn.

The first act is the one that, near the end of it, delivers some Lovecraftian vibes, as the gooey, tentacle creature comes up from the depths of the sea. From here on, the film makes it known it’s not just a classic creature feature but also an eco-horror, with some key themes coincidentally very relevant to the current time of an pandemic, with our lead fighting for the right decisions in an event of infection and a need for quarantine.

Aesthetically, there’s a merciful absence of jump scares and, apart from one scene, there’s very little gore, instead director Hardiman mostly focuses on various facets of human behavior, which makes the film feel grounded and level headed.

Also, the film’s horror elements are based more in the intricate sound design, Ray Ball‘s production design, and Ruairí O’Brien‘s cinematography. The three work in tandem to make it impossible for the viewer to ever forget that we’re on a ship isolated at sea, from the constant creaking and sound of lapping water to the claustrophobic quarters to the handheld and often dimly lit photography that imbues every shadow with a sense of the unknown.

The effects work is a solid blend of practical and CG, and while the set pieces are less action heavy than one might expect, they are both memorable and adequately dread-inducing. The fact that this threat is a nearly undetectable parasite makes it all the more suspenseful, and seeing what it does when a character gets infected is all the more intense.

In terms of problems, the most significant is that even given the small cast, there isn’t a huge amount of character differentiation, with the crew largely interchangeable, which makes it harder to care about these people, which makes them feel expendable, a potential death sentence for a film of this nature.

Also the exploration of Siobhán’s anxiety and introverted nature, while seemingly an integral part of the narrative from the outset, never truly seems to have an effect on the overall plot and could have used a bit more development, as the scenario is rife with opportunity to leverage the parasite as a metaphor for social interaction, but it never really feels like that.

While the film also never answers questions like how the creature was able to chew through parts of the boat without causing the vessel to sink, it’s an enjoyable addition to a fine tradition of nightmarish sci-fi creature features necessitating extreme human sacrifice to avoid potential decimation of our own species.

Performance vise, Hermione Corfield makes for a very attractive lead, with a completely nuanced performance which is ably supported by experienced actors like Dougray Scott and Connie Nielsen. In other roles, Olwen Fouéré, Jack Hickey, Ardalan Esmaili and Elie Bouakaze are also quite effective. On the whole, ‘Sea Fever’ is a smart and handsome sea horror that effectively uses age-old fears to provide an engaging experience.