Review: Sea Fever

Last Updated on July 30, 2021

PLOT: The crew of an Irish trawler discovers that a mysterious creature has attached itself to their ship.

REVIEW: Given the current state of the world, it’s hard to watch a film like SEA FEVER, in which the word “quarantine” figures heavily into the script, without reading into our daily battle with COVID-19, where all of us no doubt feel like we’re stars in the world’s most boring horror movie. Thus, SEA FEVER is either spectacularly well-timed or ill-timed depending on your mood, although certainly this low-key Irish horror-thriller, which premiered at TIFF 2019, was never intended to hit that close to home.

In fact, it’s a relatively well-executed micro-budget chiller. Beautifully shot and directed, despite its likely humble origins, it’s a nifty if somewhat unoriginal take on a well-worn genre. Hermione Corfield (who you might remember as playing the ill-fated IMF agent who worked at a record shop in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE- ROGUE NATION) stars as a socially inept grad student sent out on a work-study with the crew of an Irish fishing boat, headed by a mom and pop set of skippers, played by Dougray Scott (another MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE vet) and Connie Nielsen. In trouble with the banks and behind on their wages, they recklessly steer the crew into trouble, putting them out in an isolated part of the ocean where there’s no one around to help the crew after they encounter a mysterious creature of the deep. Oh yeah, and Corfield is a red-head, which the entire crew thinks is a harbinger of bad things to come, making her chilly relationship with the gang even tenser.

Writer-director Neasa Hardiman (who directed episodes of “Happy Valley” and the less prestigious Marvel misfire “Inhumans”) deserves a lot of credit for making the most of her resources, with the modest, effective creature design a lot better than in the bigger budget studio flick UNDERWATER. A glowing violet mass, beautifully framed by cinematographer Ruairí O’Brien, you only get a few quick looks because it’s not the big issue they have to deal with, but rather the parasitic creatures it sheds, which start affecting the crew members through the eyes.

This is more of a psychological slow burn than a full-on creature feature, but there are some effective gore moments, such as a brutal shot of a crew member’s eyes exploding. Despite running a scant eighty-seven minutes, Hardiman does a good job building up the characters, with Corfield an intriguing presence as a particularly aloof heroine. However, it can’t be denied some of it is predictable, with a scene showing Corfield inspecting all of their eyes just another variation on the blood scene from THE THING. However, some scenes undeniably have a little more oomph to them given the current pandemic, with a bit where Corfield and the crew argue whether or not to quarantine seeming like it was lifted out of any conversation we might have had at home in the early days of Coronavirus. While something of a B-grade thriller, SEA FEVER is really well made and exceptionally acted, with it seeming more urgent than it would have otherwise due to its freak timing (and yes it was slated for release this month long before the pandemic). As such it’s a pretty watchable little thriller and considering how threadbare the new release section on VOD platforms is getting, I think it’s well worth a look.

Sea Fever

GOOD

7

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