Powerful

hyped garbage

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

The idea of something monstrous loose on a storm-lashed oil rig is a very appealing one. A more remote, dangerous outpost it is difficult to imagine. Director Peter Atencio makes good use of a clearly low budget and ushers in a moody and claustrophobic atmosphere, fills it with a gruff working crew, and Writer CW Fallin brings them to life with some often witty dialogue. This, I always think, is the key to a level of success that belies budget – make the characters appealing (or most of them, at least) and the audience are affected by what happens to them.What happens to them is a fairly impressive series of death-by-monster. Many of these attacks are genuinely shocking, not so much in their execution – which is fine but hardly spectacular – but in the way they occur at the least expected moments.It's disheartening to see a fair amount of negative online reviews for this. It doesn't take someone as insignificant as myself to point out that everyone is entitled to their opinion, but it would be a shame to think that people slate this purely because of its low budget – which, on the evidence here, isn't THAT low. The insulting 'anyone who votes this more than one star is in some way associated with the movie' is a very narrow-minded and untrue viewpoint.It plods in places, and the finale is somewhat protracted, but there are some impressive directorial flourishes that further compound the remoteness of the location. This Alien-like horror run-around won't change your life, but I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This horror film is set aboard an actual oil rig--one that was the first of its type and is a museum today. A cute twist is having one of the characters actually wearing a t-shirt for the museum in one scene! On the rig, some underwater beast is disturbed and comes aboard to pick off the crew one by one."The Rig" is a low budget horror film with very modest production values in most ways. However, in two ways the film was quite outstanding--the blood and gore was a lot more realistic and profuse than you might expect and the musical score was great and really added to the tension. Otherwise, the film is clearly inspired by films such as "Alien", "Predator" and "The Thing". The idea of an alien slowly picking off members of a group certainly is NOT original and the writing could have been a lot better (the characters sometimes seem like caricatures and the ending is weak). It also suffers some from a few stupid clichés (such as adding nudity where it is pretty inappropriate) and seems a bit formulaic. Overall, the way I see it, if you like gore and low-budget monster films, you'll probably enjoy the film. If not, you'll probably wonder why you've wasted nearly and hour and a half of your life.

As you can see from the general tone of the user reviews, there is a great deal wrong with 'The Rig'. These are my additions to that corpus of knowledge. 1) If you're going to steal 'Alien', the least you can do is make your 'creature' look a bit different. Why is something which supposedly evolved at the bottom of the sea going to develop feet, legs or indeed a humanoid body at all? It's a guy in a suit, and all the editing in the world isn't going to disguise that. Not even if you dub on 'lizard-breathing' noises, which happens pretty much every time you see it. In fact, the only time the monster(s) make a noise is when they appear on the screen. 2) If you're going to steal 'The Thing', don't draw attention to it by having one of the characters describe the creature as 'The Thing'. That's just the sort of thing we viewers pick up on as the failed 'hide in plain sight' script gambit. Its intention is to cover up a blindingly obvious script deficit by attempting to be clever and 'postmodern' about it, but it never works. In all seriousness, even if you have a '10 for $10:00' hire deal and can't find one last DVD which looks even mildly interesting, think twice about 'The Rig', and keep thinking until you decide against it. You might need that 90 minutes for something more rewarding.

An oil rig opens a hole on the ocean floor while drilling, releasing ferocious creatures which attack humans seemingly for the hell of it. The creatures have scales down their backs and tails, a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, slimy black bodies, alien eyes, and long talons to rip into flesh. These ocean monsters also shriek and move really fast so it's hard to pick them up on the security monitors or hunt and kill them. During a stormy night, a skeleton crew on board the rig are savagely butchered one at a time(as in most horror movies, it is when each character is separated from the group or working alone in an area without prior knowledge of the monster's existence), and it will take the remaining survivors formulating a plan to trick the creatures into an isolated area to hopefully set up an explosion which will kill them using gas and flares. William Forsythe turns in his 15 minutes of performance, boosting the film's credentials with a shot in the arm before leaving in grisly fashion, as the boss of the oil rig crew, very protective of his bright daughter who also works alongside him--she is dating a member of the oil rig crew much to his disapproval. Not an original bone in its body, THE RIG is what it is, a creature feature on board an oil rig in the middle of an ocean where a motley crew of blue collar workers find themselves in a fight for survival. Art LaFluer(TRANCERS) has a small but important part as the head honcho over a number of oil rigs which mine the ocean for precious resources, Forsythe one of his most revered crew bosses(he mentions that men are waiting in line to get on Forsythe's oil rig). A heavy, often overbearing orchestral score rarely stops and there are precious few moments of silence to allow the viewer to hold their breath anticipating the next monster strike on a potential victim. I've always felt quiet can be just as effective as a loud score which doesn't let up. While the attacks are over with relatively quickly, I do believe there's probably enough graphic violence to satiate the appetite of gorehounds, at the very least you get quite a bit of blood shed. The acting isn't the film's strong point, but I did come away admiring the attempts by the writers to inject the film with some characters(the sibling dispute between brothers, one tired of living under the other's shadow, the loving bond between a father and his daughter, the experienced army man with wisdom he shares with others, etc)that aren't just introduced and killed right off the bat(there are some characters, however, who aren't as developed who merely service the film as fodder for the beasts). The oil rig itself is quite massive, a perfect playground for voracious creatures to run rampant. The movie has some really underwhelming moments of CGI fire and explosions. I will say that I think fans of creature features might want to check it out. The director keeps the creatures fairly hidden, only bits seen on screen..and they bleed blue that is actually flammable! Fans of Forsythe see a different side to him than you are normally accustomed to, his personality not as much hostile as stern, a very demanding employer, but reasonable if expecting efficiency and order from his crew. The loving and devoted father isn't a character we are used to seeing the formidable Forsythe portray.