Review: Sea Fever – “A more unusual and far more interesting slant on the horror movie than I was expecting”

Directed by Neasa Hardiman
Starring Connie Nielsen, Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott, Olwen Fouéré, Jack Hickey, Ardalan Esmaili, Elie Bouakaze

After the film festival circuit – including a debut at the prestigious Toronto International Film Festival in 2019 – Neasa Hardiman’s indie Irish horror movie arrives on DVD, Blu-Ray and on-demand from this week. Siobhán (Hermione Corfield), is a marine biology student, and one who really isn’t a people-person (as we see right at the start, as her classmates pause in the lab to celebrate a birthday, despite warm invitations to join in, she remains aloof). She is reluctant to undertake a required field work segment of her course, but her tutor tells her firmly she has to get out of the lab and get her hands dirty. To this end she’s booked aboard a trawler for a few days, to examine their catch, looking for pattens and irregularities in the marine life.

Minor spoilers ahead.

The ship is captained by the grizzled, taciturn Gerard (Scots actor Dougray Scott essaying an Irish accent), and owned by his partner Freya (Wonder Woman’s Connie Nielsen), and they are glad of the money the university contract brings – like many independent trawlers the wolf is never far from the door. There is some reluctance from the crew, partly at having someone onboard who isn’t a sailor, let alone experienced on the hard life of the trawler ships, and her stand-offish behaviour doesn’t help, nor does the fact she is a redhead (seen a bad luck on a ship, although interestingly I noticed there was no mention of the other old superstition of a woman being bad luck aboard – in fact with Hermione there are now three women on the ship).

The ship is warned by the coastguard that they cannot continue to the spot they originally planned to trawl, a potentially rich source of fish, that the area is currently off-limits as whales and their calves are in that zone. Unknown to the crew or authorities, Freya and Gerard make the decision to cut through this forbidden zone anyway. Of course any seasoned horror buff will know that going into a forbidden zone is the equivalent of leaving the path in the deep, dark forest in a fairy tale – you don’t do it, and if you do, expect trouble…

The trouble arrives fairly swiftly – something strikes the trawler, despite it being in deep ocean waters. And then they notice some very peculiar shapes forming on the planking of the wooden hull’s interior, deforming the thick wood, softening it – prodding it with a pencil, it goes right through, letting water in and revealing a glimpse of… something. Siobhán had planned a diving session as part of her field work, and at Gerard’s suggestions she reluctantly dives to investigate whatever has been striking the hull, finding something she never expected, an unknown creature, huge and glowing with bioluminescence, its long tendrils attaching to the hull. Is it attacking them, or has it just mistaken the ship for normal prey, in the way sharks sometimes bite surfers or divers, mistaking them for seals?

I thought this was the point where Sea Fever became far more interesting – especially given the situation we are all in at the moment, although that is just a lucky coincidence in timing – because until now it is giving the impression of a fairly standard monster movie. People go out on a normal, routine journey, encounter something unknown, it hunts them, they must fight to understand and survive. Except, no, it doesn’t go down that very well-worn route. Instead this becomes more about different types of life and their rights to exist, how they try to live (human and marine), and also, in what is now suddenly a very contemporary slant, about infection and controlling any potential spread from unknown new organisms.

I wondered at first if this change in tack was down to budgetary restraints – an indie movie like this simply can’t afford numerous, convincing effects scenes a full-on monster movie would demand. But I don’t think that’s it, I think Hardiman is more interested in people and their web of relationships, their interdependencies, and the way all of the elements, such as the sea, and other life (the fish, the whales, the unknown creature), how they react under sudden stress. I think it doesn’t quite hit the high mark it is aiming for, although again I think that may be due to the budget limitations indie movie makers labour under, but nevertheless I found this to be a more unusual and far more interesting slant on the horror movie than I was expecting, and well worth checking out.

Sea Fever is released by Signature Entertainment on Blu-Ray, DVD and on-demand services from this week.