Horror Death Scenes: DeepStar Six – Death by Decompression

DeepStar Six hit cinemas on January 13th 1989, but it dripped rather than splashed, where it barely matched its $8 million budget at the box office. However, it found a new audiance when it hit VHS, and rapidly became a cult classic. The underwater effects feature follows the crew of an experimental deep-sea US Naval facility who encounter an an ancient sea creature hungry for human flesh. This sets the scene for a bunch of great and gory practical effects as the creature slowly works it's way through the crew.

While the film may have barely kept its head above water at the box office, DeepStar Six secured its cult status through sheer, unbridled carnage, cemented forever by a notoriously explosive, skull-crushing decompression scene. Lots of movies have that "One Scene" that makes them memorable, for Deep Star Six, it's the bloody death of mechanic Snyder, who's head explodes due to sudden decompression.

Snyder

DeepStar Six (1989)

Driven to a state of hysterical panic after inadvertently causing a nuclear accident and accidentally killing his supervisor, Snyder steals the facility's escape pod. In his haste, he fails to undergo the mandatory decompression procedure. As the pod ascends rapidly toward the surface, the sharp decrease in pressure triggers extreme barotrauma. Gas expands inside his body, blood leaks from his pores, his skin distends, and his veins violently rupture... effectively causing him to "pop like a balloon" and coat the interior of the pod in blood.

Behind the scenes

The Distortion & Bladder Effects: For the shots showing Snyder's face and arms distorting under the pressure, the FX team applied prosthetic makeup appliances directly to actor Miguel Ferrer. These pieces had small air bladders hidden underneath them. Technicians pumped air into the tubes to make Ferrer's actual skin and face look like they were swelling and stretching. With a little fake blood squirting out here and there for detail.

The "Explosion" Cut: When the character actually "pops," the movie cuts away from the actor entirely. The crew rigged a high-powered air cannon (often called a debris or blood mortar) inside the empty, closed escape pod set. They loaded it with an immense amount of fake blood, viscera, and red fluid, and blasted it directly at the pod's window and interior walls.

The overall illusion of Synders death was created purely in the editing room by cutting from Ferrer's bloody face, to various shots of electronic panels and exterior ship scenes. Allowing them to add air bladders and gore. This was a common tactic for SFX artists, who needed to swap out effects in order to create the scene. For Snyders bloody end, the massive spray of blood hitting the glass was enough for us to imagine the graphic death happening off screen.