Sea Fever Review | Road Rash Reviews

4 star tension and terror at sea.

Sea Fever is written and directed by BAFTA© winning Irish filmmaker Neasa Hardiman (Happy Valley, Jessica Jones). An original take on the creature feature, it brings to mind both The Thing and The Abyss.

Take that thing off you. You’re here now, we’d better get used to you.”

Siobhán (Hermione Corfield – Pride and Prejudice & Zombies, Fallen) is a doctoral student, studying the science of parasitology. She is a very solitary person, choosing not to associate with her fellow students and her professor decides to send her out into the field to “get her hands dirty and make a few friends”.

To this end she reluctantly boards fishing trawler Niamh Cinn Oar, captained by Gerard (Dougray Scott – Hitman, Mission Impossible II) and his wife Freya (Connie Nielsen – One Hour Photo, Wonder Woman). Her mission is to photograph the catch and perform one dive. She is initially welcomed aboard by mate Johnny (Jack Hickey – Mary Shelley) and his Aunt Ciara (Olwen Fouéré – Mandy, Beast).

This welcome is short lived however, when they discover that she is a red head. This is believed (very accurately as it turns out) to be bad luck. It’s too late to worry now though, they have already spent her fee, so off they go. There chosen destination has been made an exclusion zone, whales are in the area, so they have to change their plans.

Siobhan gradually settles in, getting on well with Johnny and the other crew members Sudi (Elie Bouakaze) and fellow scientist Omid (Ardalan Esmaili – Greyzone) but when whales are spotted she suspects something is wrong and it isn’t long before the boat grinds to a halt, they have become caught on something. An external influence is altering the wood of the hull and producing strange blue gel. They force her to do her dive and she discovers an enormous luminous creature, holding the ship with it’s glowing tendrils.

When parasites begin to infiltrate their water supply they are faced with a desperate struggle for survival.

Sea Fever is a really enjoyable film, well written and directed with plenty of twists and turns. It’s tense and gets very claustrophobic later on, with some great acting performances. It draws inspiration from the classics of the genre, while at the same time being fresh and innovative.

An excellent watch and will grace any horror enthusiasts collection.

“Jumping at shadows, relax the head. And you, get some sleep.”