The Horror Show
Poseidon Rex
by Mark L. Lester
There are several types of man vs. horror flicks, the most common type being natural disaster films. These usually involve people trying to survive storms, earthquakes, and even volcanoes. However, there is another type of monster. One type very popular with the Syfy channel is nature horror. Nature horror often involves people forced into survival situations with creature or animals be they wild, rabid, mutated, mythological, or even prehistoric. Today we’ll be focusing on the king of the sea, no not the megaladon, Poseidon Rex aka P-Rex.
Jackson Slate is a treasure hunter who owes a local gang a bunch of money. He agrees to a dive into the blue hole, a deep trench off the coast of Belize, to search for a lost treasure. They place the depth charges to blast a hole in the ocean floor, however they choose to detonate the charges early in an attempt kill Slate. However, Slate survives the blast and is rendered unconscious. They unknowingly release the P-rex, a tyrannosaurus rex that has evolved to live in the ocean and on land, upon the world. P-rex kills everyone but Slate. He is found unconscious by a tour guide and two tourists, they must team up with a scientist in order to stop the dinosaur. The gang isn’t going to just let Slate walk away without their money and they try to track Slate down. Little does anyone know, the P-rex is a she-rex, she’s laid her eggs all over the blue hole. A new generation of apex predators are about to be unleashed upon the world.
Poseidon Rex is interesting to say the least. It follows the mechanics of nature horror to the ‘T.’ That’s to say everyone who dies and lives is exactly who’d you expect. Nature horror typically allows 2-3 survivors. Generally, the main character and his or her love interest will survive. If there is a third survivor it’s either a child or another female. You can also predict fairly accurately when a character is going to die. It’s actually paced quite brilliantly that way. I was never surprised, but I was moderately entertained. That’s because I knew what to expect and didn’t set my sights high.
P-rex was actually quite a unique creature. Oceanic nature horror isn’t an uncommon thing but it’s generally restricted to aquatic creatures such as squids and sharks. Dinosaurs are always terrifying even in family friendly movies like Jurassic Park. Never in a million years would I have thought to make an amphibious T-rex the antagonist in a movie. Even though its explanation is quite weak. It was hibernating for who knows how long ‘til it was awakened because of the explosion. It also evolved to survive in the ocean despite there being no fossil records of such evolution. They didn’t change much about the t-rex design to make it look more amphibious like it actually did evolve to survive in the ocean. The overall design of the T-rex does make it better suited for land. So there really isn’t much of an evolutionary advantage of it evolving to live in sea water.
Sorry, this isn’t about the science behind Poseidon Rex. This is about the fact that P-rex is a very unique movie concept. This is aided by the fact that the characters were bland stereotypes. I immediately knew Sarah was a scientist from the moment she first walked on screen, it was because she was carrying a book and in movies that means you’re smart. By putting the human characters to the sidelines it allows you to focus who you’re really there to see, P-rex.
The movie clearly ends on a cliffhanger. I don’t think I’m spoiling anything here but P-rex dies. Sorry to be the one to break the news but that’s a part of the formula of nature horror. The genre also ends with a cliffhanger letting everyone know that there are more of the creatures out there. This was actually quite funny because it’s a plot point in the movie that never gets resolved. At the end of the movie, Sarah and Slate have defeated P-rex, they kiss and it’s cute or something, but Sarah says, “Aren’t we forgetting something?” referring to the eggs. Then it shows the eggs begin to hatch and credits roll. This was quite a clever break in the fourth wall because I even remember thinking, “When are they going to go destroy the eggs?” This film didn’t forget though, it just pretended to in an effort to potentially setup for a sequel.
I’m not sure why I like nature horror, maybe because it’s predictable and it doesn’t try to be anything that it isn’t. It’s safe. You know what to expect so you can never be let down. It’s a fun ride, you know where you should get on and where to get off. Mark L. Lester is interesting because he’s predominantly an action filmmaker. Action films rely solely on thrill factor to create an entertaining movie. Lester clearly took what he learned from action films and applied it to Poseidon Rex. He has prior experience with dinosaurs from his other film Pterodactyl.
It’s easy to forget that horror movies should be entertaining. Sometimes horror movies get too bogged down by plot and over seriousness. This movie found a good balance, while the plot isn’t great, it didn’t need to be. It had enough entertaining factors to make up for it.
Billy Wayne Martin, HMS
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