Quartile rating: 6/10 · 1 rating
Underwater deep-sea miners encounter a Soviet wreck and bring back a dangerous cargo to their base on the ocean floor with horrifying results. The crew of the mining base must fight to survive against a genetic mutation that hunts them down one by one.
Leviathan is a fairly derivative late-80s creature feature that borrows heavily from The Thing and Alien, transplanting familiar ideas to an underwater setting. The plot is formulaic — isolated crew, mysterious Soviet wreck, genetic mutation picking off characters one by one — with little surprise or originality. The acting is functional but unremarkable, with a solid cast (Peter Weller, Richard Crenna) underserved by a thin script. Cinematography and practical creature effects are competent for the era and the confined underwater setting is reasonably well-staged, though it never transcends its B-movie budget. The ending is particularly weak, wrapping up in a rushed and unsatisfying way. Overall a watchable but thoroughly generic genre entry.