Steven C. Miller graduates to the semi-big-time via imperiled-youth thriller, SUBMERGED

Each Thanksgiving TrustMovies tries to acknowledge a deserved "turkey" among the past year's films. Because nothing in particular came to mind this year, and because he had just watched a new-and-not-very-good film opening tomorrow in New York City, I'm afraid it's this one that gets my Turkey Award for 2015. I realize that there were some worse movies this year, but after sitting through 99 long and increasing silly minutes, "turkey" seems a perfectly acceptable description for SUBMERGED. It's a bit of a sad one, too. As one of those critics who enjoyed an earlier film -- a little scare movie called Under the Bed -- by this director, Steven C. Miller (shown below), I was eager to see what he might do with a bigger budget and some better-known and usually quite dependable actors (Tim Daly and Mario Van Peebles, to be specific).

Daly and Van Peebles are not the stars, but they are the most professional in the bunch; the remaining cast members seem practically interchangeable, including the movie's would-be star, Jonathan Bennett (below). The plot has to do with a nicely designed limo that in the opening scenes careens off the road and into the bottom of a body of water, trapping the driver (Bennett) and his "guests." The latter are made up of a couple of post-high-school girls and their would-be boyfriends/drug dealers. While underwater and figuring out how they might escape or be rescued, our "hero" keeps flashing back to better, out-of-water days, and we slowly learn particulars regarding who everyone is and how they got to the bottom of the barrel -- whoops -- the canal. Turns out it was a long journey, filled with sibling problems, sexual attraction and rebuffing, and a local businessman (Daly) who is having to lay off a lot of his current employees.

The movie, in fact, is about way too much. By the finale, full of action that is not very well or believably executed, you'll realize that the film's screenwriter Scott Milam has read (or at least heard about) the famous Matt Taibbi piece for Rolling Stone on Goldman Sachs as the vampire squid. This is because the movie suddenly turns into a treatise on the evils of corporations, money and especially downsizing.

Prior to this we spend way too much time with characters (above), about whom we grow to care less and less, when it ought to work exactly the opposite. But these clunkers scream and fight and act irredeemably stupid for far too long. On the plus side, Miller makes the fear and dread of imminent drowning pretty palpable, but then forgets that the water level in the buried car needs to keep rising (at one point along the way, it appears to have gone down a lot for no good reason). As contained-space movies go, this one -- by opening up and out every few minutes so that we can learn more of the back story -- loses traction, suspense and much else. And one scene in particular telegraphs the villain all too easily, too early and too obviously.

Otherwise, I guess, Submerged is a barely adequate scare-movie/thriller, if you're not too picky. It hits theaters in a very limited release tomorrow, Friday, November 27 (in New York City, it plays at the IFC Center, in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema), while simultaneously appearing On-Demand.

A monster UNDER THE BED? Yes--and he's a scary one in Steven C. Miller's fright flick.

The bed as a gateway to hell? I suspect many of us have symbolically discovered that this is so, but in UNDER THE BED, the new scary-monster-movie from Steven C. Miller, that entrance lies literally below the bed. I am probably giving away too much already, but since Mr. Miller is content to keep his primary scares under wraps for quite awhile, this should clue like-minded audiences into the fact that the film does indeed grow more action-prone and special-effects laden as it reaches its rather bizarre conclusion.

The filmmaker, pictured at left, begins with a reunion of sorts and an exquisitely realized sense of dread. A frightened-to-near-crazed older brother, Neal (Jonny Weston, below), is reunited after some time with his sweet younger sibling, Paulie (Gattlin Griffith, kneeling, further below), his generally unhelpful father, and a new stepmother (his own having died in circumstances about which we learn only dribs and drabs). Note Neal's entrance into the house, handled quietly and very effectively. The filmmaker's budget was no doubt a small one, but he has put it to good use with a screenplay by Eric Stolze, which, if it isn't all that informative nor comprehensive, is at least smart enough to keep us hooked and a tad unhinged.

The dialog is always serviceable, and the events slowly coalesce into increasing menace. The direction is quite good, too, making the most of that small budget in production design, technical details, good performances from the entire cast, and finally some special effects that may be, overall, on the cheap side but that do the job at hand remarkably well.

On the minus side, some questions do arise that are never intelligently answered: How come the adults on hand don't hear all the noise coming from the kids' room? Just how powerful is this creature? What and what not can he do on his own? And exactly what did happen with stepmom and her foray into the garage-cum-laundry room?

We never get answers, but also, fortunately, we never get bored because Miller keeps little scares happen-ing at a good clip, before bringing out the big ones and allowing that creature to come to full-on life and begin his reign of death.

Who it kills and how -- neither kids nor parents are safe -- are certainly enough to have gotten the film an "R" rating (I don't recall seeing any rating for this movie).

Performances are about all they can be, given the state of the screenplay and the need to get on with the grizzly gore. Weston and Griffith make properly scared and loving bothers; Peter Holden proves a useless dad and Musetta Vander a warm stepmother.

As the would-be girlfriend, Kelcie Stranahan (above) is pretty and underused, while Ivan Djurovic's model-gorgeous good looks are completely covered up in the role of the Creature.

Under the Bed, from XLrator Media and running 87 minutes, opened theatrically yesterday, July 18. The horror film has also been playing on VOD since July 3 and has a DVD coming out on July 30. I'm checking now for a list of theatrical playdates -- which I'll post as soon as they arrive. Sorry to get these up so tardily, but here are the theaters, a bit after the fact: on July 18 only at Laemmle's No Ho in Los Angeles;  July 19 only at the Clinton Street Theater Portland; July 19 and 20 only at the Zeigeist in New Orleans; and July 20 only at Facets in Chicago.