Crew
Director – Brian Yuzna, Screenplay – San Fu Maltha, John Penney, S.P. Somtow & Brian Yuzna, Producers – San Fu Maltha & Brian Yuzna, Photography – Mick Van Rossum, Music – Fons Merkies, Visual Effects Supervisor – Hans Van Helden, Visual Effects – Energia Productions (Supervisor – Samuli Torssonen), Grid (Supervisor – Kris Janssens) & Victor Studios (Supervisor – Ronald Grauer), Digital Creature Design – Geppetto Animation (Supervisor – Daniel Ab), Special Effects – FX Orlandi Bassi, Production Design – Leonardus Post. Production Company – Komodo Dragon B.V./Mollywood/Komodo Films/Blind Spot Pictures.
Cast
Michael Paré (Jack Bowman), Janna Fassaert (Skylar Shane), Francis Magee (Jimmy Kudrow), Francis Bosco (Boss Harris), Monica Sayangbati (Tamal), Verdi Solaiman (Andi), M. Aditya (Big Rudi), Mikael Cakrawala Jehian (Aris), Elke Savedra (Julie), Timo Ottevanger (Logan), Bambang Budi Santoso (Dukun Uncle), Joshua Pandelaki (Officer Santoso)
Plot
Marine biology student Skylar Shane is in Indonesia and has hired the boat of Jack Bowman to go hunting for rare sea creatures. Jack stops off at the fishing platform run by Boss Harris where he pleads that he cannot pay money he owes right now. He is given one day to do so. While they are there, young Tamal tells Skylar that he is an orphan who is being held prisoner on the platform and forced to work. Skylar tries to help but they cannot rescue him. One of the workers Jimmy Kudrow then accidentally kills Tamal’s uncle. Tamal swears vengeance, offering himself to the sea creature. When Jack and Skylar return, they find the platform under attack by the giant scorpion-like creature.
Brian Yuzna first emerged as a producer for Stuart Gordon with films such as Re-Animator (1985), From Beyond (1986) and Dolls (1987). Yuzna then made his directorial debut with the perversely entertaining Society (1989). He followed this with a string of horror films as director that included Bride of Re-Animator (1990), Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990), Return of the Living Dead III (1993), The Dentist (1996) and sequel, and Progeny (1998), among others. These all came with striking fetishistic imagery and an instinctive flair for the use of makeup effects. (See below for Brian Yuzna’s other films). Amphibious 3D has been Yuzna’s final film as director to date.
With Amphibious 3D, Yuzna was shooting in Indonesia with the backing of Dutch production companies. The film was made to take advantage of the massive resurgence of the popularity of the 3D process that had been inspired by Avatar (2009). Amphibious 3D, which still bears the 3D suffix to its title in dvd release, was released ten months after Avatar among an outpouring of films that had quickly been reworked in post-production to take advantage of the newfound popularity of 3D. Being a Brian Yuzna film, we do get one or two tentacles popping out in 3D and a memorable effect where a severed torso is swung out of the screen into the audience.
Yuzna has Thai horror writer S.P. Somtow, best known as director of the very weird The Laughing Dead (1989), on script, but Amphibious 3D is not that sophisticated a film. There are the usual codedly racist scenes with the Westerners encountering local religious rituals and finding them horrific and/or their getting tangled up in local superstition, which you get in almost any horror film with Westerners visiting an exotic locale.
Amphibious 3D is a Monster Movie. It is a variation on the sea beast film – see similar efforts such as The Beast (1996), Octopus (2000), Bering Sea Beast (2014) and Sea Fever (2019) – which involve people trapped at sea for one reason or another fending off against an attacking creature. Of course, the film that cast the most substantial shadow over Amphibious 3D is Jaws (1975) – in particular, the latter half of that film with the crew of the Orca out at sea in a shark-and-mouse game with the shark as it attacks them.
Almost the entire film here takes place around a floating wooden platform that has been constructed in the mid-ocean – for fishing purposes we are told – as it comes under attack by the sea monster. We watch the various characters as they face attack and the progressive elimination of the structure, along with various contrivations whereby Michael Paré and Janna Fassaert have to return (to rescue a native boy who is being enslaved). The creature effects of the giant scorpion-like creature when it finally emerges are okay, even if Amphibious 3D itself is not anything that surmounts Jaws clichés.
Brian Yuzna has directed a number of other horror films:– Society (1989), Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4 (1990), Necronomicon (1993), Return of the Living Dead III (1993), The Dentist (1996), The Dentist 2 (1998), Progeny (1998), Faust: Love of the Damned (2000), Beyond Re-Animator (2003), Rottweiler (2004) and Beneath Still Waters (2005). Yuzna has also produced a number of genre films including various Stuart Gordon such as From Beyond (1986), Dolls (1987) and Dagon (2001), as well as Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (1989), The Guyver (1991), Infested (1993), the manga adaptation Crying Freeman (1995), Arachnid (2001), Darkness (2002), Romasanta: The Werewolf Hunt (2004), The Nun (2005) ands Takut: Faces of Fear (2008).
Trailer here