Underwater deep-sea miners encounter a Soviet wreck and bring back a dangerous cargo to their base on the ocean floor with horrifying results. In a story owing a lot to _Alien_ and _The Thing_, the crew of the mining base must fight to survive against a genetic mutation that hunts them down one by one. Part of a wave of underwater movies including _The Abyss_ and _Deep Star Six_.

In designing the creature of the film, Stan Winston and George P. Cosmatos went through a mini-library of marine life pictures and medical reference books. They were inspired by the physiology of the natural world, and came up with the idea of combining human body parts and elements of deep sea marine life into an unnatural creature never seen on film before.

Sixpack:
You know, I stood next to a guy who blew up his suit once. I'll tell you, that was not a pretty sight.


Jones:
Leave DeJesus alone, man!


Sixpack:
One tiny little hole in a fucking toe of his suit, man. No bigger than your dick. Yeah, the way the ocean came in, the pressure just crammed his whole body up into his helmet. We just buried his helmet. That would have been you, DeJesus.


DeJesus:
Hey, I know about implosions.


Sixpack:
Yeah, I bet you do. I bet you were imploding in your pants.

Continuity: After Cobb gets a cup of coffee, he sets the pot down next to the coffee maker. Immediately after, we see Beck get himself some coffee, yet he picks the pot up off the burner of the coffee maker.