The Rig

This movie had a lot of action and Scarry parts in it. Parts will have you on the edga of your sits.

It’s a monster movie…so how bad can it be. There’s bad, pretty bad, and abysmal. This one fluctuated throughout, it had some decent moments and some not so decent moments. As formula’s go, and this one didn’t, there was only two things that I liked…the monsters, of course, and William Forsythe. Unfortunately, Forsythe’s time in this movie was all too brief and some of the other (I hesitate to malign them by suggesting they were actors of any caliber), characters didn’t die soon enough…some lingered. And this is not the type of movie where you need people lingering. A more apt title for this soggy monster flick might have been Sleaze on the High Seas. At one point there was a gratuitous waste of water involved…and they weren’t swimming.

I absolutely LOVE this movie and have seen it about 15 times. I have it on DVD as well as I purchased the download on my iPad.

For the most part the acting was excellent, the story fast paced and the horror darn good!

Turned out to be a real good movie.

THE RIG is a weird mix of genres and styles.* On one level, it's a standard MONSTER MOVIE. A creature beneath the ocean floor is disturbed by oil drilling. It emerges from underground, climbs aboard the oil rig ... and the body count mounts!As a monster movie, it's what you'd expect. A disparate group of oil rig workers, skulking about dimly-lit steel corridors, seeking a monster, which picks off the workers, one-by-one.But there are some odd aspects to this film.* Too many SOAP OPERA elements.We have two brothers, one older, one younger. They bicker, because the younger one is lost in the older one's shadow. He leaves the oil rig, so he can forge his own identity on another rig.Meanwhile, the rig's supervisor is father to one of the women on the rig. She has a lover, another oil rig worker. But Dad wants his daughter to "do something" more meaningful with her life than being an oil rig worker."I wanted something better for you!" he laments."I'm not mom!" she retorts."I know," he saddens.They both gaze sadly at a photo of Mom.Still, this Dad remains extra hard on his daughter's lover. When the monster kills the lover's co-worker, Dad give a long speech on responsibility to the lover."Don't you think you were too hard on him?" the daughter later complains, during a lengthy father/daughter dialog.Then the monster kills Dad. The daughter sees the blood in Dad's office. Tears well in her eyes. She later suffers flashbacks of their father/daughter times together.Meanwhile, two OTHER crew members are having an affair. When the monster kills the woman, her lover screams at the man who was with her. "You didn't protect her!" And he beats up this co-worker.I guess it's nice that these characters are fleshed-out. But THE RIG goes overboard with it. And it's not like the characters are all that unique. Their conflicts are cliched, their dialog trite, of the sort one finds in soap operas.It feels weird, having all these soapish spats and arguments amid the creature attacks.* Then there's the CLASSICAL MUSIC. Very artsy. But a strange choice for a monster movie.When a man is killed, his death is depicted in slow motion, to a violin accompaniment. Later, another man rushes through the hallways, to a classical piano score.Monster movie scenes in slow motion -- to classical music accompaniment? Was the filmmaker trying to create a horror-art film? But the monster is so stupid, the usual rubber-suited beast!* Then there are the REALITY TV stylistics. So many shaky-cam shots, and jump-cut editing.An on-shore boss tells the younger brother that he cannot return to the rig, on which his older brother might be dead. Then several jump-cuts of the younger brother outside the office, slamming his fists against equipment in frustration. Much like a reality show producer following his subjects around.This occasional reality TV show camerawork and editing, clashes with the occasional artsy classical music. Just as the soap opera pathos clashes with the rubber suit monster.Just WHAT kind of film is THE RIG supposed to be? It's aesthetically all over the map, now this, now that.Some other observations...* It takes too long for the killings to start. Weakens the horror.* We see very little of the monster. Weakens the horror.* It's never explained WHY the monster drags his victims off, instead of leaving them dead on the spot. In Alien, it was to impregnate them with her young, but no reason is given in THE RIG. And the victims are dragged off to somewhere seemingly arbitrary. No place special, really.* Some elements are directly lifted from Alien. There's a "Sigourney Weaver moment" -- when the sole survivor woman presses herself fearfully against a metal wall -- the creature lurking on the other side!* There are some nice surprises. SPOILER ...A comedic/wimpy black guy warns one oil rig worker NOT to follow the noise, but to run the OTHER way. Normally, good advice. (In that regard, he's like the wise black maid who quit her job when the demon started manifesting itself in Mausoleum.) But then black guy is jumped by the creature -- which was BEHIND the noise. (Apparently, the noise wasn't the creature). Nice surprise.THE RIG is an okay horror film. Entertaining, but only just.

I love horror. Give it to me straight, simple and scary. Don't try to be clever or funny-scare me!. The Rig scared me. Very current theme; Oil rig with a monster ala BP. Monster is scary for low budget, simple clear plot good actors. I want to single out the creature hunter, Robert Zachar (I like non-famous good actors). Somehow he made a pretty predictable character interesting; wierd and likeable at the same time. Forsthe was good as always. Good stuff.

Not bad for a low buget movie. Kept us watching.