“Their minds are only response mechanisms. They have no will of their own.”
Ken Abe (Shin’ichi “Sonny” Chiba) and Jenny Gleason (Peggy Neal) are reporters at a press conference covering the test of a new guided torpedo, called “Blood Hound”, on a US Navy Submarine. During the demonstration they see something strange swim past the monitor. The test is quickly concluded.
Curious as to what they saw Ken and Jenny go skin-diving in the area. Jenny drops her camera and dives to retrieve it while Ken goes aboard the boat. She finds the camera and an underwater monster. She takes a quick shot of it, but drops her camera again.
Later the Navy investigator, Commander Brown (Franz Gruber), doesn’t believe her story. Ken decides to find the camera to prove Jenny was right. Jenny goes with him. While looking for the camera Ken and Jenny find an amazing underwater base. Soon they find themselves in the clutches of some strange silver skinned gill-men.
The megalomaniac of this underwater realm is Dr. Rufus Moore (Erik Neilson). Dr. Moore is creating cyborgs from humans. He calls them ‘water cyborgs’. He claims that he has absolute control over them. He controls them with supersonic signals transmitted from a machine. They are soldiers he uses to protect his underwater realm.
Dr. Moore shows Ken and Jenny how a cyborg is created and what he can do with them. He then offers to have them join him in his underwater dictatorship. If they refuse, they will become fish-borgs. In the meantime the Navy is chasing its tail.
“Terror Beneath the Sea” was released in 1966. It was produced by Toei Studios and was directed by Hajime Sato. Interracial relationships were still taboo at this time so the relationship between Ken and Jenny is kept mostly on a platonic level, however, you can see undertones of romantic affection. The music score is freakalicious. That’s all I need to say about it. The process for turning someone into a fish-borg is strange. A combination of light process and surgery. Not to mention the stop motion animation.
Sonny Chiba made this movie before he became a marshal arts film star. He appeared in dozens of marshal arts movies including the “Kill Bill” movies as well as “The Street Fighter” 1974 and “The Storm Riders” 1998. His trademark was called “The X-ray Punch”. He is not a marshal arts expert in this film.
This movie was just a bunch of fun. The pacing was good and it had lots of action. Between the silver lamé gill-borg suits, the wacko fight scenes and the freakadelic music it was just hysterical. The acting was over the top. The sets were cardboard. The villain was one step down from Austin Powers’ nemesis Dr. Evil, only with Bono shades. It was absolutely ridiculous. I loved it. I don’t know if any of this was intentional or not, but I’m glad all of it came together the way it did.