Amphibious: Creature of the Deep, also
Amphibious 3D, is a 2010 Indonesian/Dutch horror thriller creature movie from director Brian Yuzna. Mainly set on a fishing platform called Jermal in the middle of the sea offshore of Sumatra, it follows the exploits of a young Indonesian orphan Tamal, sold to slavery there by grandfather. Tamal is the youngest of the children living and working on Jermal where they are routinely abused and beaten. However, nobody knows what lurks in the waters around Jermal and that there's much more to Tamal than meets the eye. Notable for mixing elements of your usual creature feature with Asian horror.
Provides Examples Of:
- Anyone Can Die: Granted, most characters do die by the end of it.
- Advanced Ancient Humans: Tamal and Dukun are implied to be this. Or, at least, the descendants, implied to have their origins in an underwater city that might be Atlantis, where their pet-monster also dwells and their amulet seems to come from.
- All of the Other Reindeer: Tamal is a universal outcast and is picked on, disliked and disregarded by nearly everyone, except Skylar, Dukun, Aris and Ankaramurka. Aris too, who only has Tamal herself at his side.
- Asshole Victim: Harris' gang, minus maybe Nanung. Even Jack and Bimo can count to a lesser degree.
- Big Bad Duumvirate: Tamal, Dukun and Ankaramurka all count.
- Beware the Quiet Ones: Tamal sure is quiet, but woe betide anyone who gets on her bad side.
- The Bully: Rudy towards Tamal.
- Creepy Child: Tamal definitely counts as one. She can be certainly unsettling and creepy enough from her demeanor and look alone, with her lack of emotion, death glares and general nature. Then add the magic and murdering thing...
- Covers Always Lie: One of the covers says "you are what it eats", implying that the titular creature is supposed to munch on people, despite the fact that Ankaramurka explicitly never actually eats a human in the entire movie, killing them for other reasons. In fact, it's unknown, just what he eats, though Jimmy finds a bunch of dead, torn up fish under the Jermal at night once, suggesting it may be the remains of his snack. The title itself can fool one into thinking that the movie is really about an amphibian, when, in reality, it's about a scorpion, which is arthropod. The title clearly refers to Ankaramurka being literally amphibious, that is, able to function both, in water and on land, and not him belonging to the amphibian family, being giant sea scorpion and all. Also, the thing on the covers looks little like the actual creature.
- Co-Dragons: Tamal and Ankaramurka both might be this to Dukun.
- The Dragon: "The Giant Sea Scorpion", in this case. Ankaramurka is clearly one for Tamal and Dukun. Tamal herself might be one to Dukun.
- Dragon-in-Chief: Tamal might be this to Dukun as well, being much more generally hostile and proactive than him.
- Devour the Dragon: Tamal kills Ankaramurka in the end, seemingly to fulfill the ritual.
- Death Glare: Tamal's frequent expression.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Tamal is implied to have one. She mentions that her parents have died in a tsunami and, if her current relationships are any indication, she most likely was picked on and persecuted her entire life for being a witch and being related to a shaman.
- The Dog Bites Back: Tamal spends the movie methodically slaughtering the Harris' gang for abusing her and Aris and for killing him.
- Emotionless Girl: Tamal partially fits the type. She's normally very taciturn and withdrawn, quite stoic and unexpressive and her only emotions are rage at humans around her and sorrow over Aris' death. She genuinely cried and mourned him after he died and frequently expressed anger when dealing with other humans, but other than that, she doesn't emote much throughout the movie, being generally detached from people and her surroundings and keeping to herself at all times.
- Enfant Terrible: Tamal again.
- Evil Sorcerer: Dukun and Tamal. Tamal has magical powers and is called a "witch". Dukun explicitly calls himself a "magician".
- Eldritch Ocean Abyss: Ankaramurka lives in a deep sea trench, near an abandoned underwater city implied to be Atlantis.
- Final Girl: Skylar. Apart from Tamal herself, she is the only one to survive the events.
- Villain Protagonist: Tamal is the main character and center of the movie, with movie closely following her from beginning to the end, despite being a killer-witch and creepy child, intentionally setting off her sea scorpion on people to kill them and apparently conducting dark rituals with human sacrifice. Granted, most of her victims are jerkasses who had it coming, but there are some of relatively innocent people among them, like Julie and Logan, and Jack and Bimo, with the implication that there may be more, showing that she really does not discriminate. Skylar and Jack are more like the usual protagonist type, but are ultimately side characters in Tamal's story.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Tamal goes on one after Aris is killed.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Ankaramurka has four glowing red eyes.
- Ritual Magic: The whole movie appears to be a part of the ritual human sacrifice to gain power, conducted by Tamal on Dukun's behalf. Tamal conducts one over Aris' dead body, summoning Ankaramurka and dark powers to her aid.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Dukun, who was the one to raise Tamal as an evil witch she is, send her and Ankaramurka to Jermal and, hence, cause all of the events in the first place.
- Psychic Link: Tamal and Ankaramurka clearly have one, as evidenced by how when he gets axed in the head, she screams in pain too.
- Sea Monster: Ankaramurka, naturally.
- Gender Reveal: A major one. Tamal is initially believed by everyone, save Dukun and Aris, to be a boy and looks and acts like one thoughout the movie. Her being a girl is revealed half-way through the movie, to the great chagrin of Harris' gang.
- Human Sacrifice: The whole movie is Tamal doing this on Dukun's behalf.
- The Man Behind the Man: While it seems that the giant sea monster, Ankaramurka, is the main threat, it's actually Tamal herself that summons and controls him, being behind his rampage. Tamal herself is guided by Dukun and sent by him to Jermal specifically to sacrifice its inhabitants in a ritual to gain power in the first place.
- Misanthrope Supreme: Seems to be Tamal's case. She clearly despises the people around her, takes the side of magical, otherworldly, supernatural forces, has a giant marine monster at her command that seems to routinely kill people and can calmly kill anyone if they're of no use to her. Though she did spare Skylar and allowed her to care for her, in the end, there was really no positive sentiment on Tamal's part. The only human she had a positive relationship with is Aris. She clearly cared for him, heavily mourned him when he died and his death is one of the main things that fueled her revenge. She's also likely to have, at least, a neutral kind of relationship with Dukun, though it's not really demonstrated, but she did go to Jermal on his behalf.
- Not So Stoic: Tamal cries over Aris' dead body and screams in rage at Rudy later. These are very few occasions, though.
- Never Found the Body: Bekka, Skylar's daughter. Skylar mentions she disappeared when she took her on a trip to Tahiti, specifically saying that "they never discovered the body". Her apparition/hallucination haunts Skylar on a few occasions, but it's unknown what happened to her, whether she became one of Aknaramurka's victims or it's something else.
- Tranquil Fury: Tamal's usual emotion, most of the time. Especially after Aris' death.
