Meg 2 Has Some Classic And Not-So-Classic Monster Movie Inspirations
Ben Wheatley is one of the most unpredictable filmmakers working today. He impressed with his feature debut, the darkly funny "Down Terrace," but took a huge leap when he decided to blend two quintessential British genres, crime flicks and folk horror, with the terrifyingly brilliant "Kill List." Wheatley could've hightailed it for Hollywood on the strength of the latter, but he had different priorities. He bounced from the psychedelic horror of "A Field in England" to an effective adaptation of J.G. Ballard's dystopian "High-Rise" to the pitch-black shoot-em-up "Free Fire." He subsequently took a crack at Daphne du Maurier's "Rebecca," and while he couldn't quite place his distinctive stamp on the material (which Alfred Hitchcock aced with David O. Selznick hanging over his shoulder in his 1940 Best Picture winner), you had to admire his ambition.
Wheatley is an undoubtedly gifted filmmaker, but, film to film, I can't figure out what he's up to. Maybe he's just making movies he wants to see. If so, we're kindred spirits in our love of killer shark movies. Like most folks my age, Steven Spielberg's "Jaws" hooked me with its unerring mixture of horror and adventure. It was a bracing variation on Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" unencumbered by the literary pedigree (because author Peter Benchley was far from a prose titan), and it spawned countless imitators, most of which I've seen more than once. It's a delightfully simple formula that preys on our fear of what lies beneath the glassy surface of the oceans.
So I'm eager to see what Wheatley has in store with "Meg 2: The Trench." After Jon Turteltaub's shockingly incompetent "The Meg," easily one of the worst films of this century in this writer's opinion (despite /Film's positive review), Wheatley's got nowhere to go but up. And, if nothing else, it sounds like he's drawing inspiration from the right sources for this sequel about a gargantuan prehistoric shark that has an insatiable appetite for anything that enters its gaping maw.
A monstrous shark with a monstrous pedigree
In an interview with /Film's Jacob Hall, Wheatley namechecked some old-school classics: "Godzilla: King of the Monsters," "Jason and the Argonauts," and, of course, "Jaws," which he called one of "the greatest films ever made." As he told Hall, "[It's] a film I revisit a lot and re-watch, it's a film that is a film school in itself. And to see that he did it when [Steven Spielberg] was 26 or whatever disgustingly young age he made that movie at, which is basically inventing it and so much stuff. I definitely looked at that."
Wheatley also drew on James Cameron's "Aliens" and just about any B-horror flick that he watched as a kid. He understood the assignment and sought to craft a giant monster movie where the audience doesn't question the tone or purpose of the material. Basically, if you bought your ticket to see a shark gobble up folks fool enough to drift about in open water, Wheatley's going to give you the intellectually honest version of that.
And, per his interview with Hall, he's also going to be referencing one of the most underrated kaiju movies ever made.
Go watch Gorgo!
Eugène Lourié's "Gorgo" was initially supposed to be a "Godzilla" knock-off set in Japan. Eventually, the producers brought the giant lizard, which is awakened by a chance volcanic eruption (there ain't a lot of subtext in this sucker), to the Atlantic Ocean. Gorgo is actually a baby creature discovered by British fishermen. Unfortunately for 1961 London, which had recovered from the Blitz, Gorgo has a mother, and she wants her kid back. Lourié knew precisely what kind of movie he was making, and whisked us through the mayhem in under 80 minutes.
"Gorgo" isn't a film most Americans know, but it had a huge impact on Wheatley. I love how he described the movie to Hall:
"So it starts with them fishing, I think maybe it's Ireland or something like that, and they catch a baby dinosaur and they bring it back to London and then his mother turns up and destroys London. But it's kind of weird. It's a man in a suit obviously doing it and lots of miniatures, but then it's kind of quintessentially British as well at the same time. And I remember seeing it as a kid on at four o'clock in the afternoon on TV and it blew my mind, that I thought, 'Oh my God, they've done one of those for us. I can't believe it.'"
I remember watching "Gorgo" as a "Creature Feature" on Detroit's WKBD, and it instantly became a favorite because (spoiler) Gorgo and Mama return to the sea no worse for wear. Again, this film has no overriding political message. You're rooting for Gorgo, and Lourié gives us what we want.
Here's hoping Wheatley does likewise when "Meg 2: The Trench" hits theaters on August 4, 2023.