| Creatures from the Abyss | |
| Director: | Alvaro Passeri |
| Screenplay: | Richard Baumann |
| Story: | Richard Baumann |
| Music: | Elikonia Group |
| Cinematography: | David Williams |
| Editing: | Peter Jones |
| Distributor: | Production Film 82 |
| Runtime: | 86 minutes |
| Country: | Italy |
| Language: | Italian |
| Budget: | $250,000 |
Creatures from the Abyss (original title Plankton) is a 1994 Italian horror film directed by Alvaro Passeri and written by Richard Baumann. The film stars Clay Rogers, Michael Bon, Sharon Twomey, Laura di Palma, Ann Wolf, and Deran Sarafian.
A group of five teenagers, three girls, and two boys get lost in the ocean in a dinghy, and a big storm begins. Suddenly they spot a yacht sitting in the middle of the ocean, and they go to investigate and to find shelter. But in fact, the yacht was a secret laboratory studying mutated fish resulting from radioactive plankton. One of the specimens escaped, killed the crew, and preys on the unsuspecting teenagers.
Shriek Studio released Creatures from the Abyss on 31 July 2007 as part of the Mutant Monsters Triple Feature along with The Dark and The Being.
Much of the coverage for Creatures from the Abyss focused on the film's production values, acting, and dubbing.[1] HorrorNews.net noted that the film contained poor dubbing, special effects, and acting while also stating "Is this movie worth your time? I’d have to say “Yes!” Is it a new cult classic in the making? Maybe. Don’t really see people flinging caviar at the screen. Still, it is quite quotable, and makes for a great party film with like-minded friends."[2] Clive Davies noted many of the same issues with the film in his book Spinegrinder, however wrote that the stop motion effects were "quite good".[3]
Bleeding Skull called the film a ripoff of Piranha, further writing that the film "looks like it was shot by the team behind and feels like it was written by Lloyd Kaufman between The Toxic Avenger and Class of Nuke 'Em High.[4]