Five Unforgettable Aquatic Horror Movies
Just When You Thought It was safe to get in the water…
Bodies of water have long been places to be feared in horror films. The creatures in aquatic horror movies terrorize lakes, oceans, rivers, beaches, and anywhere else that people flock for watery summer fun.
Ever since the success of Jaws (1975), there has been a monsoon of water horror movies. Sharks have been particularly popular as antagonists. Jaws adopted a mostly serious tone, but the films of subsequent decades are mainly known for campy humor and over the top monsters.
Each of the movies below feature a different kind of creature: a giant river snake, a diabolical mermaid, genius sharks, flesh-eating piranhas, and whatever the hell those things in Humanoids from the Deep are.
Make some popcorn, get comfortable, and prepare yourself for five unforgettable aquatic horror movies.
Anaconda (1997)
Anaconda is a brainless but undeniably entertaining flick about, you guessed it, a killer anaconda. A film crew exploring the Amazon rainforest encounters the colossal creature, which is capable of eating humans whole. The snake viciously dispatches the crew one by one.
The cast is filled with familiar faces, including Ice Cube, Jon Voight, and Owen Wilson. Jennifer Lopez, whose movie career was taking off at the time, also plays a major role. Lopez isn’t usually associated with horror, but this isn’t her only genre credit. She was also in The Cell (2000).
It’s impossible to take a movie seriously when it has dialogue like “Never look in the eyes of those you kill. They will haunt you forever.” Anaconda is an irresistible ’90s cheese fest.
Dagon (2001)
No list of aquatic horror movies would be complete without an H.P. Lovecraft adaption. Dagon, which was directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator), is about four friends who are vacationing off the coast of Spain. After a storm damages their boat, Paul (Ezra Godden) and his girlfriend Barbara (Raquel Moreno) seek refuge in a nearby fishing village.
They discover that the area is populated by a cult of fanatical fish-human hybrids who worship a sea monster. Lovecraft’s obsession with tentacled creatures is on full display here.
After the couple becomes separated, Paul engages in a desperate search for Barbara while trying to resist the advances of Uxia (Macarena Gómez), a mesmerizingly beautiful mermaid queen who wants him for herself.
Gordon caps off his adaption with a truly perverse twist ending. The film’s third act incorporates human sacrifice, incest, and self-immolation. This is an impressively deranged movie with a campy atmosphere and plenty of dark humor.
Deep Blue Sea (1999)
Dr. Susan McCallister (Saffron Burrows) and Jim Whitlock (Stellan Skarsgård) are conducting shark research that they hope will help treat Alzheimer’s patients. Like all animal experiments in movies like this, their work backfires spectacularly.
The project is overseen by corporate executive Russell Franklin (Samuel L. Jackson). The facility’s cook, Sherman Dudley (LL Cool J), is working separately in the facility’s kitchen, accompanied by his wisecracking pet parrot.
The scientists illegally modify the sharks’ brains to make them more intelligent. These efforts blow up in their faces when the super-smart sharks work together to flood the underground facility and eat the crew.
Deep Blue Sea features some of the most legendary deaths and dismemberments in the long and glorious history of shark horror movies. There is an especially famous and shocking death that occurs near the end of the film. Don’t worry, I’m not going to spoil it, but it’s truly unforgettable.
Stream Deep Blue Sea on Youtube
Humanoids from the Deep (1980)
Humanoids from the Deep is an unapologetically sleazy flick produced by low budget king Roger Corman. The film takes inspiration from earlier aquatic horror movies like The Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954), while adding graphic ’80s gore and sexuality.
This movie gets credit for its creative monsters. The filmmakers could have taken the easy way and made yet another killer shark movie but nope, we get gilled bipedal fish hybrids instead.
A company’s secret experiment goes horribly wrong, triggering the creation of mutant fish humanoid monsters. The scaly obscenities rise out of the water and attack the inhabitants of a California town. The creatures are particularly interested in young women, leading to several surreal and incredibly tasteless scenes that have made this movie notorious.
Humanoids from the Deep is a bizarre and often baffling ride that you’ll remember long after the credits have rolled, whether you want to or not.
Stream Humanoids from the Deep on Shudder
Piranha (1978)
A school of ravenous flesh-eating fish, the subjects of a secret government experiment, are accidentally unleashed into a river. The nasty critters rip chunks out of every man, woman, and child they can find.
Maggie McKeown (Heather Menzies), a plucky private investigator, teams up with Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman), a gruff mountain man, to save the local population from the piranhas’ wrath.
The typical romantic subplot never quite develops. These two are too busy fighting piranhas to fall in love. It’s just as well. It would have been difficult to squeeze a romance inside Piranha‘s tight 90 minute runtime.
The movie begins with a character playing a Jaws arcade game and it goes on to make light of many of the elements from that classic and its copycats. The bumbling protagonist who nobody believes until it’s too late, the skeptical mayor who absolutely refuses to admit that anything is wrong, and the blatantly gratuitous nudity were all common elements that Piranha spoofs.
Related Article: The Ten Most Terrifying ’70s Horror Movie Posters
Piranha‘s self-awareness sets it apart from the legions of other ’70s Jaws rip offs. It was directed by Joe Dante, who later helmed The Howling (1981) and Gremlins (1984). If you like those movies, you’ll probably enjoy this too. All of them have similar comedic tones while also featuring some dark moments.
A glimmer of truth behind the absurdity
Many aquatic horror movies are about animals that have been fundamentally altered by human meddling. People have found perverse ways to make nature’s beasts even more terrifying.
The monsters in these movies have no basis in reality, of course. But lurking beneath the fantastical elements is real-life anxiety about the effects of human activity on nature and the environment. Maybe that’s why these films resonate with us. Or maybe we just love cool sea monsters.
These are good, I especially like Piranha!