MS
Marco Soldati
•The 101 is an oil platform located in the Pacific Ocean, which should be under maintenance due to various serious technical problems, but the ZortronOil company decides to send a group of specialized workers, supervised by a geologist, to drill at considerable depths, in order to corroborate the theory that would place a huge deposit in that point. From the beginning of the work period, incidents follow one another without interruption, making the operations increasingly difficult. Moreover, on the company's orders, radio silence is imposed to preserve the secrecy of the site. During a drilling operation, some singular fossil remains and a specimen that had been buried for centuries at the bottom of the ocean are brought to light, which, once on the surface, prove to be extremely dangerous for all the crew members.
"The Terror Comes from the Past" is one of the many and regretted B-movies of the "mythical" 80s and belongs to the fanta-horror genre, given the mixture of fantastic and horror elements; the strong point of the film is, without a doubt, the setting, rather unusual and original, which is adequately exploited thanks also to a passable photography; to my knowledge, the only other fanta-horror filmed in such a context is the recent and mediocre "Proteus"; the choice to use an oil platform as a location proves to be really happy, because it provides cramped and claustrophobic spaces, as well as some moments of suspense, especially in the first half, which is very well crafted. Unlike the first, tight and tense, the second half appears rather messy and with many unintentionally comic moments, which the director could have easily avoided. Poor, in that fragment, unfortunately, are some dialogues (see the one in the canteen or between the two protagonists in the radio room; for example: "Can I hug you?" "Yes, hold me tight"; dialogue for immediate censorship!). A bit tiresome, then, the many shots from above the platform; if in the first half they could have a useful function, in the second they bore and do not work as cuts between one scene and another; moreover, in the second half, unfortunately, the story loses some coherence, due to some "script and editing gaps" (see characters that appear and disappear and have no weight and usefulness for the story). Then, the evolution of the monster is not very well clarified, although this may not necessarily be considered an error or an oversight, but perhaps a directorial choice, (shareable or not...this is another topic).
The ending is definitely predictable and pessimistic and given the premises, much more could have been done; the cast is acceptable, that is, it is decent; the special effects are in the "neither infamy nor praise"; good, however, is the monster's makeup in its final stage. Of course, the references (plagiarisms or quotes, depending on the point of view) to other genre films are countless; the most obvious reference is clearly "Alien". Little blood shown, despite the number of deaths, certainly not low. Some elements of the film (e.g., the company's interest more in the "findings" than the crews) we then find in other subsequent works such as "Leviathan" and "The Creature from the Depths".