Review: 'Whalefall': Austin Abrams Swallowed by a Whale in a Tragically Unintentional Thriller — A Tale of Human Perseverance and Mammalian Stomach Lining

Is it gross? In moments. Claustrophobic? A little. Scary? Not even a little. The place J finds himself resembles a colonoscopy designed by H.R. Giger. The visual effects... are fine. At times, it feels like we're locked in a pop-up theme park ride called Search for the Full Cavity.

It's based on the bestselling book by Daniel Kraus, but something got lost in translation.

"Whale Pressure" is an underwater thriller that wants to do for whales what "Jaws" did for sharks. But it doesn't happen like that. This movie does for whales what "Howard the Duck" did for superheroes in the Orchard - it makes you never want to see one again. Of course, whales are beautiful creatures, and the whale in "Whalefall" is a long, angular, submarine-shaped sperm whale, a sleek gliding beast that rules the ocean. However, for most of the film, we are inside that whale. Literally inside it. The main character, Jay Gardiner (Austin Abrams), goes diving off the beaches of Monastery Beach near Monterey, California, in search of the body of his father, a violent sailor who committed suicide. (He had mesothelioma, a form of cancer that meant he could no longer dive; for him, it meant life wasn't worth living anymore.) RELATED STORIES Netflix's 'Blue Road' director Han Joon-hee on why it's safe to play Jeopardy Real Shawn Levy lands a Disney deal after nearly a decade at Netflix.

Jay gets caught in the tentacles of a giant squid after diving in, and that's when the squid-eating whale pulls both Jay and the squid into its huge open mouth. Moments later, Jay is trapped inside, surrounded by rippling fleshy bulges. For the rest of the movie, he'll try to survive inside that whale, which means being sucked out of the existing pre-digestive chamber (which glows phosphor blue) and into the stomach cavity (which glows hellish red), where stomach acid begins to dissolve him. Popular in Variety

For a moment it occurred to me that Jay might run into his father a la Jonah or Geppetto. But no, he's alone, trying his best to escape this intense pressure of whale meat. Is it gross? at times Claustrophobic? a little Scary? Not even a little. The place where Jay finds himself is similar to the colonoscopy performed by H.R. Giger designed. The visuals are... good. At times, it's as if we're locked in a pop-up amusement park called the Perfect Hollow Quest. At one point, Jay uses a whale-eaten jellyfish to light his way, and that's as close as he gets to finding a companion. "Whale Pressure" is a fearless story of human endurance and mammalian guts. It should have been called the "Hail Fish Gut Project".

Watching Jalal Nahang, I kept thinking, "Why would anyone want to see this movie?" But the answer is clear. "Whale Pressure" is adapted from Daniel Krauss' novel 2023, which was well received in addition to being a bestseller. But something got lost in translation. The movie that director Brian Duffield made of it is an exciting piece full of unwanted laughs. With a hero who spends the heart of the film sucking his oxygen vent, not so much talking as making maddened grunts of fear, "Whalefall" takes us away from our most basic rooting interest. Sure, we want to see Jay get out of there, but only because the whole ordeal is so haunting and unpleasant.

It's saying something that this is the second movie in a month that Austin Abrams has had to claw his way out of the flesh tentacles, and only one of those movies isn't completely ridiculous, and that's Resident Evil. Abrams had an indie hipster appeal in Zack Kerger's horror film, but in "Whalefall" he's too weak by half, a naïve college kid who never proves to audiences that he's got the right stuff. The film, like the book, follows the troubled relationship between Jay and his father, Mitt, played by a dazzling, body-tattooed Josh Brolin in one of those brutal performances as an annoying macho father - a not-so-great Santini who thinks it's the best way to prepare his son for what a tough world it is. As Brolin plays him, Mitt is like Robert Shaw's Quintet in "Jaws," only cranking up the psychotic masochism several notches.

The film keeps going to flashbacks of Jay and Mitt at various points in their relationship, which is basically one long downhill slide. However, in the second half, Jay begins to realize that Mitt has actually taught him everything he needs to know to get out of his predicament. The message? A young man who bonds with the soul of his hole father while trapped in a pillow of whale gut stays with his hole father's soul. "Whale Pressure" even has an "ecological" aspect: the title refers to what happens when a whale carcass sinks to the ocean floor, an event that can create a rich marine ecosystem. But the movie "Whale Pressure" is a carcass of a thriller that never rises.