The Abyss (1989)

Film and Plot Synopsis

A civilian diving team, enlisted to search for a lost nuclear submarine, faces danger when they encounter an alien aquatic species.

‘The Abyss’ Movie Summary

After an American submarine is sunk under mysterious circumstances near the Cayman Trough, the military sends a team to recover the sub. A privately owned, experimental underwater drilling platform, headed by Bud Brigman is tasked with escorting the navy team to the submarine. Bud’s estranged wife, Lindsey, designed the rig and is brought in to assist the mission.

The navy team and the platform workers investigate the submarine wreckage. They can’t salvage the sub or rescue any crew. While at the submarine, Lindsey and a crew member both encounter strange phenomena that appear to them to be extraterrestrial creatures. Lt. Coffey, the leader of the navy team, hijacks one of the rig’s miniature submarines in order to recover a nuclear warhead from the sunken sub. While he is away, a nasty storm brews on the surface and rips the crane away from the vessel on the surface that supplied the underwater rig. The crane drags the rig to the edge of the great abyss at the Cayman Trough, stopping just short of pulling them to the depths.

The crew is stuck as Lt. Coffey shows increasingly paranoid and erratic behavior, slowly succumbing to pressure sickness in the underwater rig. While the tensions in the rig grow, the crew is surprised to find a tentacle made of water coursing through the rig, controlled by the alien beings. Coffey believes they are coming for his warhead, and he attacks the water tentacle, which dissipates and disappears. Coffey is convinced the aliens are up to no good, and he fastens the warhead to a drone and programs it to detonate near the aliens. But and Lindsey make a futile attempt to stop him as Coffey hijacks another mini submarine and dies in a fight with Lindsey and Bud, crushing while uncontrollably descending into the trench

With their own submarine damaged beyond repair, Lindsey allows herself to drown so Bud can tow her back to the rig in his wetsuit. Bud revives Lindsey and revives his love for her. With the timer on the nuclear device counting down, Bud dons a deep pressure suit and descends down in to the abyss to disarm the bomb. He succeeds, but it takes him too long, and he runs out of oxygen, telling Lindsey that he knew he was making a one-way trip. Bud sees lights below him in the trench and is accosted by an alien creature that takes him by the hand and escorts him to a massive craft at the bottom of the trench.

The aliens save Bud and provide a space with air for him to breathe. The aliens had been watching TV and believed that mankind was destined to destroy itself with nuclear weapons. After surveying their options, the aliens elected to destroy the earth’s coasts with massive tsunamis. However, Bud’s self-sacrifice and message of love to Lindsey changed their minds, and the massive waves withdraw after coming dangerously close to hitting land.

Bud and the crew of the rig are saved by the aliens raising their craft to the surface and miraculously saving them from death by decompression. Meanwhile, humanity may seem to have found a new resolve to get along.