New England disaster movies: a brief primer
What the hell is happening off the coast of New England?
Disney’s latest true disaster 3-D experience, The Finest Hours, takes you on a sea expedition — but not the kick-back-and-relax-on-a-Carnival-cruise kind. This ocean trek has alarming weather conditions. And gut-wrenching waves. And a sinking tanker ship. And a very, very, very drenched Chris Pine and Casey Affleck.
This man-versus-the-scary-depths-of-the-sea template is something we’re all familiar with. Jaws practically put that motif on the Hollywood map. In the Heart of the Sea starring Chris Hemsworth came out just two months ago.
In fact, lots of movies over the past few decades explore dire catastrophes in the middle of New England waters. Alas, it all begs the question: What is happening off the coast of New England? And why is Hollywood so obsessed with it? Filmmakers never make stories about rescue missions, sea creatures, or giant ships off the coast of Delaware, for example.
With the use of five different films you definitely know, we explore.
—CAPRICIOUSNESS OF NATURE—
The Perfect Storm
Mark Wahlberg and George Clooney star in one of the most harrowing maritime tales in cinematic history. It’s based on a true story, where a group of commercial fishers off the coast of Gloucester are caught in a three-way collision of weather fronts, creating one of the nastiest storms of all time. With a $120 million budget, of course the crème de la crème of special effects in the year 1999 were essential in making this movie.
The Finest Hours
This movie feels a lot like The Perfect Storm with a Disney Instagram filter (if it had one), so these themes are going to be in close proximity. The Finest Hours is also a true story that follows men battling the dark waters in the midst of an astronomical hurricane, but this time these guys know what they’re getting into when setting out on a rescue mission. Like The Perfect Storm, it went hard on overbearing visuals: The sky scraping waves, intense rain, monstrous images of the tanker ships, for example.
That said, the weather plays an astronomical role in both films. People whose everyday job require them to work at sea are always pitted against the unpredictable forces of nature.
—FEAR OF THE UNKNOWN—
In the Heart of the Sea
“How does one come to know the unknowable?’’ is one of the opening lines of this movie, henceforth putting the very concern into your head from the get go. Sure, “the unknowable’’ is learned to be a whale the size of a small island because all of us know Moby Dick, the tale the movie is based on. But for most of the film, the whale is just portrayed as a shape. We get some up-close shots, but if anything it feels like a demon. That’s the essence the whale projects anyway, so the creature is actually sort of abstract.
Jaws
Is Jaws considered a horror movie? It’s a thriller at least, one that takes place off the coast of fictional New England summer spot Amity Island, and also pits humanity against an unpredictable, deadly creature. In the Heart of the Sea is no Jaws and vice versa. But one is like the other, in the sense that the scariest things about the sea is what lies beneath those dark waters. Jaws definitely plays up that unease; the actual shark is not really seen for most of this movie, but is instead talked about or suggested with effects. No one likes a creature that they can’t decipher, and the movie is way more ominous that way.
The “Sea Monstah’’
Must we back track on this one? The video of these two Massachusetts bros who discovered this “sea monstah’’ went viral partly because it’s hilarious — “We gotta call the f—ing aquahhrium, bro!’’ — and partly because we all wanted to know what the hell that swimming seahound actually was. It was an ocean sunfish, clearly. But still, wasn’t the video better when it the mysterious monster was a “baby tuna, bro’’/’’baby fahking whale’’/’’some s— we have never seen before’’? Hell yeah it was.
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