The Neptune Factor (1973)

‘God, the eels! They’re attacking Moulton!’

An ocean lab is swept into an undersea trench during an earthquake. The scientists topside launch a rescue mission to find the trapped men and bring them back to the surface, captained by a new commander in his untested mini-sub. Tension rise as the mission begins to look hopeless.

Soggy aquatic adventures with Ben Gazzara, Yvette Mimeux, Ernest Borgnine and Walter Pidgeon. How such a name cast became attached to such an effort like this is a bit of a mystery really. The script gives so little for the cast to work with that it’s almost criminal. The only relationship between characters that even gets a passing mention is Mimuex’s on-off romance with one of the trapped men (Michael J Reynolds) and that’s pretty much dealt with in a couple of lines. Other than that there is absolutely zero character development and no reason for the audience to care.

Proceedings open with Lalo Schriffin’s music tipping the hat to ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ (1968) and sweeping ocean shots of some very big ships. The whole enterprise has ‘Important’ stamped all the way through it. Like a cheap stick of seaside rock. Whilst Pidgeon stomps around the ship’s control room looked worried, a smirking Gazarra pilots the rescue sub crewed by Mimeux, Borgnine and some other bloke. Unfortunately, Gazzara’s driving is as haphazard as his Southern accent and the mission is soon in trouble.

‘Christ, i was filming ‘The Wild Bunch’ only 4 years ago…

Apart from the dull screenplay, what really wrecks things are the terrible SFX. In ‘The Abyss’ (1989), James Cameron gave us ENT’s in the unseen depths but according to ‘The Neptune Factor’ (1973), the local population is the usual aquatic flora and fauna – only gigantic. This leads to lots of exciting shots of fish and plants filmed extremely close up. The fish interact with a tiny model mini-sub. The whole thing looks like it takes place in someone’s aquarium.

It put me in mind of ‘The Giant Claw’ (1957), a standard 1950s giant creature flick, remembered now for its’ hilarious flying puppet monster. In these circumstances, you can only feel sorry for the cast.

It’s a little strange because the film obviously had some budget. Perhaps the producers simply had no money left when they went to add the SFX in post production. Or they simply hired the wrong people to do them and got stuck with the results. Good SFX wouldn’t have saved the film – it’s far too dull and underwritten for that – but they would have helped.

Director Daniel Petrie went on to a career in unremarkable TV movies but returned to the aquatic world with ‘Cocoon: The Return’ (1988). Clearly, it wasn’t safe for him to go back into the water.

Buy ‘The Neptune Factor’ here