Leviathan (1989 film)

Natura non confundenda est. Loosely translated: don't fuck with Mother Nature.

—Dr. Thompson on the fate of the crew of Leviathan.

An underwater mining crew about to return to surface discovers a Russian sunken ship, Leviathan. However, said ship is supposed to be currently operating in the Baltic Sea and suspicion arises. The captain left a video log saying that the entire crew has fallen to an unknown disease, but the log cuts short as someone enters the captains's quarters. A crewmember referred to as Sixpack keeps a bottle of liquor found in the ship but it makes him sick the next day, and everything goes horribly wrong.

Leviathan ~~is clearly inspired by~~ stole everything from Alien and The Thing and never tries to hide it. This is not screenwriter David Peoples' best work. Special effects were done by Stan Winston, and the music was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, which only seems appropriate all things considered.

Leviathan was released in 1989, the same year as The Abyss, and was promptly forgotten. B-movies starring Peter Weller seem to have this as a reoccurring theme.

Tropes used in Leviathan (1989 film) include:

Bio Augmentation: This is what was attempted with the Leviathan crew. It did work but definitely not in the way that it was supposed to.
Biological Mashup: The dead/infected crewmembers eventually join together to form a mess that doesn't really look like anything.
Black Dude Dies First: At first it seems like the film is going for an aversion but the very last death which happens after the survivors reach the surface and are already being rescued by a helicopter crew is Jones, the black guy.
Body Horror: The mutation takes over the host body and makes it a creepy, eel-like mess of tentacles and teeth.
Chainsaw Good
Corrupt Corporate Executive: Martin.
Developing Doomed Characters: For forty minutes.
Driven to Suicide: Bowman after seeing Sixpack's corpse and realizing what was happening to her.
Dull Surprise: Damn it Beck, if the base is falling apart and monsters are stalking through it, it means you should EMOTE SOME, PERHAPS!
Everything's Even Worse with Sharks: When the crew finally manages to get to the surface, they are briefly attacked by sharks.
Fate Worse Than Death: The crew members who get infected throughout the movie are shown to retain their consciousness far into the physical transformation, even past merging with each other.
Gone Horribly Wrong: What happened with the titular ship Leviathan and subsequently to the mining station. It's almost a textbook example.
Hey, It's That Guy!: Oh hey, look, it's RoboCop! And there's Winston! And Colonel Trautman! Marv the Wet Bandit! And... the concierge from Pretty Woman?
I'm Cold... So Cold...: Cobb right before the inevitable.
Lego Genetics
Pre-Mortem One-Liner: Peter Weller gets the best one before putting a grenade in Leviathan's mouth blowing it up.

Steven Beck: SAY AHHH!!!! MOTHERFUCKER!!!!!

Shower of Angst
Soviet Superscience
The Virus: The unintended result of the Leviathan experiement.
Thrown Out the Airlock: The underwater version of this is attempted twice in the film and it still backfires both times.
Too Dumb to Live: Sixpack and Bowman drink liquor found on a sunken ship where the crew had mysteriously died from a contagious illness.
Underwater Base: The mining station.
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?: Secretly feeding a ship crew chemicals that will cause mutations doesn't sound like a good idea in any context.
You Fail Biology Forever
- Apparently trying to give people gills will turn them into something out of The Thing, complete with the ability to infect and absorb any lifeform they come in contact with. Does anyone else think this is a roundabout way to get gills?
- After discovering the fused bodies of two infected crewmembers, totally original by the way, they decide to flush them out the air lock. They flush the monster with gills out of the air lock into the ocean, which is full of water, I just, what were they, ARRGH!
Zombie Infectee: Cobb is a strange subversion. He's clearly infected and everyone is much aware of this but he keeps fighting the monster with the other remaining survivors until his transformation finally kicks in with full force.