You know the boring parts of a porn that you just fast forward through until the "actors" are done talking? Well that is this entire movie! I'm talking about bad lighting, awful dialog, terrible editing (scenes are drawn out way too long, with awkward moments of nothing going on), and unforgivable monster attacks that show too little of a monster that looks like it was made in a middle school art class. I can't believe the cast and crew were even able to see this thing through to completion. The only reason I gave it 3 stars instead of 1 is for the brave men and women who selfishly destroyed their reputations for the sake of not giving up on something you started. One star movies are filmed with a cell phone in a junk yard, at least they got someone to rent them an oil rig.
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Alright, well first of all, just based from the movie cover, you already know this is going to be something like a standard horror movie from the late 80's / early 90's, and sure enough - it is! This movie is just screaming late 80's/early 90's horror flick. From the way it is shot, the storyline and the setting. Let's take an isolated rig out in the middle of the ocean, miles from land. Throw in a storm, of course, for good measure. Then cut off communications with mainland and then have some strange creature come aboard the rig. A creature no one ever heard or seen before. Yeah, late 80's/early 90's cocktail right there.
Oh, and while we are at it, lets put William Forsythe's name up on the poster, then we have a semi-famous name to draw people in. Now, this puzzles me indeed, especially because his role in the movie is no more than a supporting role, if that much even.
Anyway, "The Rig" is actually filmed in an adequate manner, especially if you are into horror movies from back in the day. The setting of the movie, well it has been used a bit too much in the past.
The people in the movie also did a good enough job with their roles. But you never really got to feel for any of the characters, as they were all just portrayed superficially. There were very little character development and building in this movie. Basically just your standard isolation-horror-with-slim-survival-chance-movie here.
And what was up with the storm? At one point it was furious and pounding the rig with no mercy. But when they had to go out to walk on the cranes (or whatever it was) the storm had dissipated? Even though they had said it wouldn't break up before the next day? And once off the crane, it started to thunder and get sort of stormy again? Tch, tch...
I must admit that I blackout and snoozed maybe 10 or 15 minutes away of the movie, but when I woke up, I could immediately get back into the movie and the story, because nothing major happened, nothing that couldn't afforded to be missed anyway.
What ticks me off in these types of movies, is the fact that you rarely get to see the creatures in full detail. It is always blurred motion, small and fast glimpses, silhouettes, or whatever they come up with to make it more thrilling and creeping. No, no, no! It doesn't' work to that end, it doesn't become thrilling, it doesn't become scary. I will tell you what it becomes; it becomes annoying and frustrating. As a movie lover, I want to see such monsters, I want to see the horror that stalks the people. I am not content with glimpses here and there. It makes the whole project reek of low-budget and cheesy effects.
If you are in for an evening of horror in the predictable genre, then this might be something right up your alley. But if you, like me, prefer more than just cheap thrills and bad plots, don't bet your money on "The Rig". The movie is bearable to sit through if you have nothing else at hand, but there are far better horror movies available. And don't get fooled by an otherwise rather interesting-looking movie cover! -
gavin69424 October 2010In the midst of a tropical storm, the crew of an offshore oil rig must survive the rampage of a creature after invading its undersea habitat.
Although I don't think this film debuted on SyFy, it belongs there. It's of low budget, little original plot, and just all around lesser quality. I can say, thank goodness, this did not have the horrible special effects of SyFy (actually, some of the gore was decent).
William Forsythe is the alleged star, his name even appearing before the film's title. Well, that's a tough call. He's not the main character, and he is outacted by his mustache in a few scenes. So, unless you're a die-hard Forsythe fan, don't expect him to be the key to this film's success.
The DVD has a misleading cover image, making the monster look gigantic. It's much more humanoid. And there is a subplot of a brother story... for why? It's not important to the story at all, and adds a thin sentimentality to this film. Very thin.
The one thing I can praise them for is that this movie was shot on location at Charlie rig (now a museum in Louisiana). As far as authentic scenery goes, you can't get much more real than this. An actual rig! -
If you're wondering why, with a summary like that, I can only give it 1 out of 10, let me explain.
If someone can take a script this bad and a cast so poor and still persuade people to hand their money over to it, then, if you're an aspiring movie maker, you should be ecstatic.
It has absolutely everything bad you can think of in a movie: Horrendously poor editing; a completely pointless flashback to a few minutes earlier, in black and white to remind you (if you're a complete idiot) what just happened; dreadful, tinny low budget music to match the low budget set; and a man in a plastic monkey suit grabbing people in a quick blur of camera motion while someone throws fake blood around.
And dialogue that's so poor that if they had managed to hire a cast of decent actors they would have ended up shaking their heads at the inanity of it all.
There are some tits in it. That ought to double the viewing audience.
Give this one a wide berth unless you have the choice of watching this or sticking map pins into your eyeballs. -
eflemieux10 June 2019This movie makes absolutely no sense and was written by people who have absolutely no idea of work safety regulations... people die all the time on that drilling platform and the staff acts like if they simply deserted - there is no emotion, no stress, no documenting what happened, just sex scenes and stupid dialogue.
I understand they had no budget, but that no excuse for lazy writing and pathetic acting. Roger Corman made movies on shoestring budgets but never sank that low.
I'm surprised the director ever found another job. -
Wow, can someone please give me the directors number as he owes me 2 hours of my life back. Easily the worst movie I've seen of late.
I'm not usually reviewer, nor a movie critic, but if i can save someone from watching this movie then I will have achieved some sort of personal satisfaction for the torture that I received whilst watching it.
The 2 positive things i can take from this movie is that 1)i saw some boobs and 2) it makes some bad movies I've watched now seem semi-bad.
Every facet of this movie is shocking from the script right down to the monster which is is a cross between an inbred raccoon an A-sexual dog on heat.
The acting is only topped in poorness by the dialog, which appears to be the script of a cheesy R-rated porn.
How this movie made it to DVD is beyond me, obviously someone in the cast or crew is sleeping with someone in the know how.
I wouldn't even recommend illegally downloading this movie. do yourself and your braincells a favour and steer clear unless you have a spew bucket and a swear jar handy 0.5/10 -
You might as well FF through this entire film, frankly. It is PAINFUL to watch, as poor untalented amateurs try to do some acting, really dreadful. As someone else said, you'd expect better "acting" in a porn movie. I have rated this 2/10 because I reserve my 1/10 ratings for the most extreme, absolute, total worst ever conceived and put on film, tape, or video. The dialogue in "The Rig" is tired, unimaginative, lax, dumb, pathetic. I don't think there really was a director, seems as though the cameramen and actors were somrta left on their own to plod throught the scenes. The colour quality is terrible. The audio is passable. Attempts at humour fall flat. AVOID this piece of nonsense, unless you're punishing yourself for something, like you're doing penance! Awful. Awful. Awful.
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This horror film is set aboard an actual oil rig--one that was the first of its type and is a museum today. A cute twist is having one of the characters actually wearing a t-shirt for the museum in one scene! On the rig, some underwater beast is disturbed and comes aboard to pick off the crew one by one.
"The Rig" is a low budget horror film with very modest production values in most ways. However, in two ways the film was quite outstanding--the blood and gore was a lot more realistic and profuse than you might expect and the musical score was great and really added to the tension. Otherwise, the film is clearly inspired by films such as "Alien", "Predator" and "The Thing". The idea of an alien slowly picking off members of a group certainly is NOT original and the writing could have been a lot better (the characters sometimes seem like caricatures and the ending is weak). It also suffers some from a few stupid clichés (such as adding nudity where it is pretty inappropriate) and seems a bit formulaic. Overall, the way I see it, if you like gore and low-budget monster films, you'll probably enjoy the film. If not, you'll probably wonder why you've wasted nearly and hour and a half of your life. -
LOL101LOL4 October 2010It took me all of 5 minutes to note the top notch production The Rig is. About 10 minutes to not want to see it till the end, but something drove me to endure this horror of a film. Maybe I was waiting for the B grade king Val Kilmer to make a guest role appearance, or did I miss Val? He could have acted the role of the nasty critter, would have been up his alley. The film has a feel of the 80's, cheap ass sound/music, Borat style acting, back yard special affects, story line dug up from a Kremlin vault. Overall a damn fine B grade film. But it has got a few boobies in it, so things are not all bad. 1 out of 10, or AWFUL
Damn not enough lines for submission, I just can't find enough bad things to say about this B horror of a film, enough lines typed yet? -
AmandaGirlLA19 August 2010I attended a screening of The Rig this past weekend in LA - at The Silent Movie Theater (which, by the way, is a great place to watch a scary movie!)
Compared to other 'scifi creature horror movies' this movie was amazingly good. LOVED the music...it had great scary and funny moments (which honestly helped me through the 'horror', as I'm not typically a huge fan of pure horror films.) Crowd was screaming or laughing out loud which made it fun to see with a group.
And believe it or not - it actually had a story with some meaning, hard to come by in creature movies these days. Director said they filmed on real oil rig in Louisiana and you could tell. If you like Scifi/thriller movies- you should have fun with this one. -
Cinobite176 June 2013I honestly don't know why this film has been rated so low. This currently has a 3.3 where as "Hypothermia" is rated at 4.0 which has far less authentic creature effects.
Yes this is a low budget film, but it is surprisingly better than expected. I don't watch a lot of low budgets because... well, normally they are horrendous.
Where The Rig comes into it's own and succeeds is in its direction. It's another man in a rubber suit creature flick and sure, it does have its fair share of pot holes. But there is a notable amount of creativity and well versed cinematography. The create attacks fast after a great build of suspense. Because of this, you never fully see the creature - you don't see a man in a wetsuit and fish head dancing in the snow like you do with Hypothermia. The cuts are spot on and when you do see the full body of the creature it's through a black and white CCTV camera and, given the way that they it moves (very lizard like), appears to be CGI.
It does pay homage to Aliens - in fact, before I even read the comments, I was sure that the sound of the rain during the first attack was the same sound scape as used when the marines landed on LV426.
But anyway, there's no need to go over board with the review. Needless to say that The Rig is a low budget film that works well because of the direction and editing. They've done a fantastic job with what they have. Like a seasoned pro with a shoestring budget. Give it a go, you might actually like it. -
harbinger98710 March 2011Writing on behalf of Ron.Gray@NT.gov.Au, I lost all respect for William Forsythe after painstakingly watching this so called "filth" passed off as being a horror film. I know you do get bad films and all actors will make the odd bad movie, but this is beyond a joke. If the producers/directors of this movie decide to make a sequel, please feel free to get in contact and i will happily advise on how to make a proper horror movie. Bambi made me mess my pants more. I don't want to sound demeaning towards the movie as is it's obvious the whole film was filmed and created on a $5 budget, but let's get serious here folks, this is the movie industry and I was always under the firm belief that creating films was for entertainment purposes. This however comes under the category of don't even bother to watch again, this was so low budget I would prefer to watch Hannah Montana.
P.S. If you ever want to spend $5 on another movie, try make it more realistic, hey, here's a suggestion, try spending $6 next time.
P.P.S. Mr. William Forsythe, please never, ever, ever sign a contract to make such a rubbish film ever again, you are way too good to be wasting your talents on cheap films like this. (Sorry for being so blunt, but this film was just plain old filth.) -
cchefney7 October 2010I'm usually a huge fan of cheap low budget movies. And just as a previous reviewer said, I also thought the monster was a gigantic sea creature... but it turned out to be some tiny monster that looked not much larger than a little kid.
You can almost always tell the cheaper-made movies apart from how they show the monster. It's always... show an arm here... a leg there... a scene with some teeth and claws, etc. However, what makes this movie stand apart from all of that is this... You NEVER actually really clearly the monster(s) at all. I figured that maybe at the end you will be able to clearly see it... but no... it was inside a dark tunnel so you can't even really see it clearly.. unless of course you pause the movie... then you can sort of see it... kind of... hahahah Aside from being kind of predictable and the characters doing illogical things... it wasn't all that bad, I guess. I did manage to watch all of it. -
ryrychildress7 January 2011This Movie was a total waste of time it has nothing but crappy camera angles and terrible sound also the effects were dumb. I highly doubt that the special effects artists from Alien vs. Predator had anything to do with this... ..It was a waste of $10 when I could have just gotten Billy Madison for the same amount and got some good laughs instead of feelings of this was terrible. If you want to get this movie I say wait until you see it go on sale me and my friend saw it and thought we were interested until we put it in and sat down and watched it. I see the only reasons to get this are bragging rights about having more movies than anyone else or if you are interested in collecting everything that has an actor that was in a Disney show/movie.
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MrGKB11 January 2011...and whatever precious fluids, bodily or otherwise, that went into this shoddy piece of make-work cinema (and I use the term loosely, given that it was obviously shot on Hi-Def video and went straight to Shlockbuster and whatever other outlets were foolish enough to carry it). It's a snooze of a creature-feature (with a monster that's, at best, an upscale Halloween costume) with a script likely written in haste on scrap paper, indifferent acting (these people had to know they were in a pile of dreck, and William "The Rock" Forsythe should be slapped for slumming; Art "Field of Dreams" LaFleur can at least be forgiven for needing work), horrendously awful direction, static, boring camera-work. A quick scan of the credits reveals the sad truth that "The Rig" is a vanity piece, a "family affair" designed to spotlight the son of the producer and the co-screen-meddler, whose turn as a Colin Hanks wannabe is cheapened even further by his doubling as the critter. The "original" screenplay by one of the ostensible leads isn't; it's totally derivative, unexciting, and outright stupid. The only thing actually "original" is that it was shot on a real deep-sea drilling rig. Yay! I honestly have no idea why I've already wasted so many words on this bottom-of-the-barrel nonsense. Whatever budget "The Rig" had sank right to the bottom of the ocean, as will this risible production in the sea of video entertainment. Back to the drawing board with all of you, and please don't show your faces again until you've got something worthwhile in hand.
IMDbers, you've been warned. This is fast-forward crap of the lowest order. -
zhi_wen_wong25 October 2010I really don't know what is going on with the movie industry, for the last couple years, I have seen a lot of movies that the camera zoom so close and you can only see those actors' face and 10 seconds into the movie and you already feel headache and daze. Same for this one again. Most of the shots are close up and I can't see nothing but actor's face. Are the director nuts? Did he/she actually show it to somebody and ask what they think? I am not a senior, I am 30 years old and sometime play FPS game, but those movies are just too daze. 1 minutes into watching it, I turned it off and call it a quit.
Like in another film from Thailand, in one of the fighting scene, FIGHTING SCENE with sword, I can only see that female actor's head and can't even see what she was doing.
Those guys are nuts. Just like 3D, your know, almost all movies are 3D now, including those with story without much of actions. Hope they remake "Gone with the wind" and "Titanic" with 3D and throw billion of dollars into it and got nothing back and has to file for bankruptcy. -
Not sure what the point of making this movie was. The acting is a little below average at best. The plot was cliché. The musical score was wrong for this type of film. The script was down right terrible...and I've watched/reviewed my fair share of garbage I guess the best part of the entire movie was makeup/costumes and possibly the director of photography (although he had very little to work with). I If this film truly garnered 2.5 to 3 million dollars in production costs, then ANYONE can get a film to screen with the right drive and determination. Don't bother viewing unless you are a film student in need of inspiration.
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movieman_kev14 May 2012During a tropical storm, an assortment of badly written crew characters must deal with the rough weather as well as a mysterious creature who finds itself aboard the rig. Whenever 4 or more writers work on the same movie script, it's usually not a great sign (if said film is an anthology that rule doesn't apply, but this is not the case here) The plot is trite, the characters somehow cliché and bland at the same time, and the film as a whole is not nearly entertaining enough to make the huge detriments ignorable. An extremely dreary mess, avoid it.
My Grade: D-
Eye Candy: Carman Perez gets topless -
Leofwine_draca2 March 2014THE RIG is another nondescript monster-on-the-loose story, made foul by an almost non-existent budget and a distinct lack of imagination. Indeed, the paucity of creative energy is evident in this film's paint-by-numbers script, which tells exactly the same kind of story as has already been done dozens of times before by better directors with bigger budgets.
In this one, the crew of an oil rig find themselves menaced by a monster from the ocean floor, although there aren't many explanations on offer. It all boils down to a man in a rubber suit – or what looks like a child in this case – running around and killing overacting cast members in slapdash ways. Attempts at poverty-row gore effects are pitiful and the acting from the no name cast is even worse, not that it mattered when the characters are so clichéd to begin with. The only actors I recognised were THE BRING remake's Art LaFleur and OUT FOR JUSTICE's William Forsythe, neither or whom can readily be described as stars.
In the end, the things that really bring THE RIG down are the lack of money and the lack of experience on the part of the director. It just looks cheap and cheesy throughout, and not in a good way. There are no surprises, no well-directed scenes of suspense or action, just a mindless mess of watered-down and hackneyed scenarios done before and better. -
mr_pivac198514 December 2010What ticks me off in these types of movies, is the fact that you rarely get to see the creatures in full detail. It is always blurred motion, small and fast glimpses, silhouettes, or whatever they come up with to make it more thrilling and creeping. No, no, no! It doesn't' work to that end, it doesn't become thrilling, it doesn't become scary. I will tell you what it becomes; it becomes annoying and frustrating. As a movie lover, I want to see such monsters, I want to see the horror that stalks the people. I am not content with glimpses here and there. It makes the whole project reek of low-budget and cheesy effects.
If you are in for an evening of horror in the predictable genre, then this might be something right up your alley. But if you, like me, prefer more than just cheap thrills and bad plots, don't bet your money on "The Rig". The movie is bearable to sit through if you have nothing else at hand, but there are far better horror movies available. And don't get fooled by an otherwise rather interesting-looking movie cover! -
digdog-785-7175384 October 2010Not all B movies are cheese,y'know?
The Rig is a 80s' style monster film(think The Abyss), low-budget film about a sea creature attacking an oil rig; there's a storm about, so the crew cannot get off it and must fight the creature.
Direction and dialogue are surprisingly good. The production is pretty bad, at least in the lighting department, but aside from that, it's easily tons better than many, many Hollywood blockbusters. They also must have found some really brilliant kid from filmscoring school, because the music is really nice. Camera work isn't perfect, but more than acceptable. Throughout the film there are some... really nice.. scenes, whoever directed this sure has done his homework; this film is no Inception, but there is more script here than in a dozen of the films i had the misfortune of watching lately.
I guess thats enough for a review. I wont spoil it for you, but suffice to say, twenty minutes on i was well convinced i was in for a treat.
final vote 6/10 higher production values (i.e., MORE MONEY) would have made it at least a 7. Recommended for anyone who loves filmmaking. (The Rig IS a bit cheesy, but nowhere near say .. Terminator 3) -
Scarecrow-882 March 2011An oil rig opens a hole on the ocean floor while drilling, releasing ferocious creatures which attack humans seemingly for the hell of it. The creatures have scales down their backs and tails, a mouth full of razor sharp teeth, slimy black bodies, alien eyes, and long talons to rip into flesh. These ocean monsters also shriek and move really fast so it's hard to pick them up on the security monitors or hunt and kill them. During a stormy night, a skeleton crew on board the rig are savagely butchered one at a time(as in most horror movies, it is when each character is separated from the group or working alone in an area without prior knowledge of the monster's existence), and it will take the remaining survivors formulating a plan to trick the creatures into an isolated area to hopefully set up an explosion which will kill them using gas and flares. William Forsythe turns in his 15 minutes of performance, boosting the film's credentials with a shot in the arm before leaving in grisly fashion, as the boss of the oil rig crew, very protective of his bright daughter who also works alongside him--she is dating a member of the oil rig crew much to his disapproval. Not an original bone in its body, THE RIG is what it is, a creature feature on board an oil rig in the middle of an ocean where a motley crew of blue collar workers find themselves in a fight for survival. Art LaFluer(TRANCERS) has a small but important part as the head honcho over a number of oil rigs which mine the ocean for precious resources, Forsythe one of his most revered crew bosses(he mentions that men are waiting in line to get on Forsythe's oil rig). A heavy, often overbearing orchestral score rarely stops and there are precious few moments of silence to allow the viewer to hold their breath anticipating the next monster strike on a potential victim. I've always felt quiet can be just as effective as a loud score which doesn't let up. While the attacks are over with relatively quickly, I do believe there's probably enough graphic violence to satiate the appetite of gorehounds, at the very least you get quite a bit of blood shed. The acting isn't the film's strong point, but I did come away admiring the attempts by the writers to inject the film with some characters(the sibling dispute between brothers, one tired of living under the other's shadow, the loving bond between a father and his daughter, the experienced army man with wisdom he shares with others, etc)that aren't just introduced and killed right off the bat(there are some characters, however, who aren't as developed who merely service the film as fodder for the beasts). The oil rig itself is quite massive, a perfect playground for voracious creatures to run rampant. The movie has some really underwhelming moments of CGI fire and explosions. I will say that I think fans of creature features might want to check it out. The director keeps the creatures fairly hidden, only bits seen on screen..and they bleed blue that is actually flammable! Fans of Forsythe see a different side to him than you are normally accustomed to, his personality not as much hostile as stern, a very demanding employer, but reasonable if expecting efficiency and order from his crew. The loving and devoted father isn't a character we are used to seeing the formidable Forsythe portray.
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wadechurton20 February 2012As you can see from the general tone of the user reviews, there is a great deal wrong with 'The Rig'. These are my additions to that corpus of knowledge. 1) If you're going to steal 'Alien', the least you can do is make your 'creature' look a bit different. Why is something which supposedly evolved at the bottom of the sea going to develop feet, legs or indeed a humanoid body at all? It's a guy in a suit, and all the editing in the world isn't going to disguise that. Not even if you dub on 'lizard-breathing' noises, which happens pretty much every time you see it. In fact, the only time the monster(s) make a noise is when they appear on the screen. 2) If you're going to steal 'The Thing', don't draw attention to it by having one of the characters describe the creature as 'The Thing'. That's just the sort of thing we viewers pick up on as the failed 'hide in plain sight' script gambit. Its intention is to cover up a blindingly obvious script deficit by attempting to be clever and 'postmodern' about it, but it never works. In all seriousness, even if you have a '10 for $10:00' hire deal and can't find one last DVD which looks even mildly interesting, think twice about 'The Rig', and keep thinking until you decide against it. You might need that 90 minutes for something more rewarding.
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schreiber-stephen10 January 2014The Rig was forced upon me because I decided to watch it before it expired on instant and I always try to watch everything on my queue before it expires. That being said, I probably would never have watched this movie without that nudge...
It starts off with some of the worst acting I have ever seen and that is saying a lot because I've seen some bad movies. Some movies can overcome even bad acting if the plot is good. This movie is not one of those. After the horrible voice-over, the movie just goes downhill. There are some decent things about the movie but nothing that can make up for what this movie is lacking. William Forsythe, Art LaFleur and (maybe) Serah D'Laine make every other person's poor acting stand out that much more. Unfortunately for Forsythe and LaFleur, their costume department decided that it was necessary for them to wear pants that go up to their man boobs. The other good thing I can think to say is that the poster looks great.
The major problem I have is that The Rig hits on just about every one of my major pet peeves about any feature. There are some flash backs to a scene that you just saw 5 minutes ago... The writer uses poor dialog such as "I am your daughter" and "we are brothers" because it seems as if they think the audience is made of up a group of fools that cannot figure out what relationship everyone has to each other without it being in your face. Horrible. The graphics are poor at best and probably unnecessary at times. The alien / monster thing made me laugh out loud with how poorly done it was. It looked like a guy in a leotard with an alien mask who loved to be in a 4 point stance at all times. William Forsythe is on the cover of every poster as the main actor in this movie and he dies halfway into it. The list goes on and on.
Like I said, William Forsythe and Art LaFleur are good but nothing can overcome the amount of flaws in The Rig. It's not the worst movie I have ever seen but it was pretty bad. -
BakuryuuTyranno2 March 2012Much like "Snow Beast" there's not much I can really say about the film; essentially there's people on an offshore rig.
Actually, the practical effects monsters are likely the only real positive for most monster movie fans... and there's no human villain.
The only noteworthy negative is the confusing focus - two brothers have a plot thread, one tries to transfer off, while the other... becomes a secondary character, overshadowed by another couple. Worse, the entire rig crew cast doesn't appear together... probably ever. While watching I sometimes thought that couple were the older brother & his girlfriend.
Otherwise the only notables are that it's less preachy and annoying than "Parasite" and "Ghost Rig", two other offshore rig-based horrors, although unfortunately not quite good.