- After outrunning a typhoon at sea, a strong-willed tugboat navigator and her crew discover a high-tech alien life form that's taken control of a Russian research vessel and aims to destroy on a massive scale.
- When a typhoon cripples their boat, the crew sails into the eye of the storm, where they discover a high-tech Russian communications and research vessel adrift. Only one Russian crew member is still alive, raving about "intelligent lightning." They soon discover that an alien life form has taken over the ship's computers and is churning out mechanical warriors. With their own boat destroyed, the crew must battle the creature as the ship reenters the storm.—Anthony Pereyra {hypersonic91@yahoo.com}
- The space station MIR is communicating with the Russian research vessel Vladislav Volkov, when the astronauts witness a surge of energy coming to Earth, killing them at the station and reaching the ship, attacking the captain, officers and crew. The tugboat Sea Star is towing a barge with cargo not covered by insurance when she crosses a typhoon and loses the cargo. The alcoholic Captain Robert Everton is informed that the engine room is flooded and the bilge pump does not have enough capacity to pump all the water overboard. Captain Everton is ready to commit suicide when the tug stumbles upon the Russian vessel and he believes the salvage would worth about thirty-million dollars. Captain Everton and his crew goes onboard of the dead ship considering derelict and soon they find the Russian officer Nadia, who tells an incredible story. She explains that an alien force needs electrical power to build robots and destroy the human race, but they believe she is haywire. But soon they find the threat on board.—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Tugboat passengers take refuge from a storm in a seemingly abandoned Russian intelligence post. They soon discover that the crew was murdered by aliens who think of humans as a virus that must be exterminated. The storm doesn't go away, and they find themselves stuck with the aliens with only two options: to fight or to die.—ShowBob <showbob@geocities.com>
- A ghostly ship looms silently ahead as the crippled, ocean-going, salvage tug Sea Star approaches. The Sea Star crew, their ship slowly sinking, has sought refuge in the eerie calm of the eye of a typhoon to make repairs and hopefully avert disaster. But something's terribly wrong. The ship, a Russian science vessel bristling with high-tech radar, electronics and other wonders, appears to be deserted. Unfortunately for the crew of the Sea Star, nothing could be further from the truth. Shelter from the storm turns into terror on board as they find themselves stalked by a mutating alien life form that has traveled across time and space, an energy force unlike any in the universe. It is powerful. Intelligent. And it has found the perfect planet to inhabit. Now, in order to survive, it must destroy the one threat to its existence: a virus called man.—Darren R W Baker <effervescentjesus@usa.net>
- The film opens with the Russian space station Mir conducting a transmission with a research ship in the South Pacific, Akademik Vladislav Volkov. While the crew of both the space station and the ship converse, a large electrical storm from deep space strikes the Mir. The electrical surge hijacks the Mir's electronics and beams itself to Earth by entering the ship, disabling it in the process. The crew of Mir are apparently killed, while the large research vessel's crew suffer an unknown fate.
Seven days later, during a typhoon, the tugboat Sea Star, captained by Irishman Robert Everton (Donald Sutherland), loses its uninsured cargo, which was the captain's last chance to get out of debt. Sea Star's crew, led by navigator and ex-Navy officer Kelly Foster (Jamie Lee Curtis) and engineer-for-hire Steve Baker (William Baldwin) discover the tug taking on water in its engine room; Foster suggests to Everton that they take refuge in the eye of the storm to make repairs. Everton agrees, but while Sea Star rests in calm waters, he puts a bullet in his pistol and contemplates committing suicide. At that time, the Akademik Vladislav Volkov appears on Sea Star's radar, and upon realizing that it could be worth many millions in salvage, Everton orders his crew aboard.
All transmission equipment on the ship is destroyed and most wires are slashed; even more strangely, several areas of the ship are riddled with bullet holes, suggesting a struggle. However, no crew appear to be present, much to Everton's delight (as if any crew were surviving, his salvage would be worth much less than the $30 million he envisioned.) Everton orders Steve to go with fellow crewman, Squeaky (Julio Oscar Mechoso) and restore power to the ship so that it can be moved. They do so, but almost immediately, the ship's anchor drops seemingly on its own, sinking the Sea Star with deckhand Hiko (Cliff Curtis) and first mate J.W. Woods, Jr. (Marshall Bell) on board. Steve leaves Squeaky behind to guard the engine room but he is soon lured to his death by a strange, robotic, spider-like creature. Outside, Woods goes for the flotation device, instead of helping a wounded Hiko, who can't swim. Steve comes to his rescue.
Afterward, as Foster treats Hiko's injured leg in the ship's sick bay, a figure in a gas mask bursts out of one of the medical cabinets and fires a Skorpion 61 at the crew. Steve subdues the figure and removes the gas mask to reveal Chief Science Officer Nadia Vinogradiya (Joanna Pacula), the sole survivor of the Russian ship's crew. Nadia rants hysterically about "it" needing power to travel through the ship, strikes Everton and attempts to wield an ax against Foster, but Foster succeeds in subduing her long enough for them to take her to the bridge.
When Squeaky does not respond to Steve's calls, he sets out to check the engine room and orders Woods and crewman Richie Mason (Sherman Augustus) to come and help him. Richie and Woods, who were sent elsewhere in the ship prior, encounter another of the strange robots and soon find a fully automated workshop producing them. When Richie prods a newly-created machine creature, it shoots Woods with a nail gun, then the pair are attacked by what appears to be a gun-wielding Russian crew member. Eventually, Richie and Woods catch up with Steve, who has found the engine room abandoned with its door welded shut. They are suddenly attacked again by the Russian crewman, who is revealed to be a cyborg. As Richie and Woods lifted a stock of weaponry from the ship's munitions depot, the trio are able to battle the cyborg.
At the bridge, Everton accuses Nadia of being the one who dropped the anchor and sank the Sea Star. He threatens to shoot her if she doesn't give him Squeaky's whereabouts, but Nadia doesn't care, as long as Everton cuts the ship's power. Realizing this makes no sense as Nadia was hiding in the sick bay, Foster stops him. Woods, Steve and Richie arrive with the apparently dead cyborg and display it on a table; beginning to connect the dots, Foster asks Nadia to tell them fully what happened. She explains that the electrical energy from the Mir boarded the ship eight days prior, and it was not just energy but a highly intelligent life-form. It scanned all the data on the ship's computers in order to learn how to kill humans, then set about using the ship's machine shops - first, it built the smaller robots, the "gatherers". After that it began giving itself the body it lacked by killing the crew and converting them into cyborgs; the one that Sea Star's crew killed was Nadia's captain and husband Alexi.
When the eye of the storm passes away from the ship and violent seas return, the crew decides over Everton's objections to find a way to destroy the creature. They head for the computer room but are ambushed by Squeaky, who has been converted into a cyborg, and also by a gigantic robot that kills Woods. The surviving crew flee into and barricade themselves inside a communications room where Richie manages to send out a mayday; however, Everton shoots out the communicator, unwilling to let anyone else in on his salvage. Foster punches Everton in the face and declares him removed from command. Richie comes up with an idea: the alien life-form is electrical and inside the computers, so they can speak to it using a computer. It replies that it is "aware" when asked who it is, then declares that mankind is a species harmful to the body of the whole, a virus (or germs, as Richie says). When asked what it wants, it replies with various tissues and nerves - humanity is only useful for spare parts, which causes Richie to go insane. He brutally kills the cyborg Squeaky as it breaks into the room, then uses a grenade launcher to escape.
Everton, who stayed behind in the communications room while the rest of his mutinous crew decided to go find the computer and sink it, realizes that the alien is interested in him. He uses the computer to tell the alien that he is the "dominant life-form" and offers to help it reach any port it desires in exchange for the salvage. He is told to go to Workroom 14 on the E Deck. The crew finds the computer room empty with a number of the spider robots crawling around; the alien moved the computer elsewhere in the ship. Realizing that the ship is taking them somewhere, they struggle back to the bridge, by going outside and Hiko is blown overboard in the typhoon. Meanwhile, Everton enters the workshop and finds the robots mutilating and dissecting a number of men including Woods. Impressed with the alien's work, he bargains with it, and it asks him to help it survive.
Foster identifies Lord Howe Island as the ship's destination. Steve realizes that the alien wishes to reach the island because of the British intelligence installation there, which would allow it to beam itself anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere. The crew agree to sink the ship, but then a new cyborg appears in the room - made from a Russian sailor's torso, with Everton's disembodied head. Cyborg Everton attacks his crew, and the alien takes over his body to declare that there is "a whole world waiting out there". Nadia manages to kill Everton by using a Thermite hand grenade, but the crew realizes time is running out. They decide to sink the ship by flooding the hold with fuel and detonating it.
A bomb is placed in the hold as the crew empty all the fuel tanks. Foster and Steve run into Richie, who fled them earlier. Suddenly, a giant robot - named the "Goliath" - appears and brings down the structure and Richie and Steve fall. It captures Foster and tortures her so she will reveal where the bomb is. A fatally injured Richie reveals to Steve that he has prepared an escape route in the ship's missile room. Nadia and Steve manage to rescue Foster from the Goliath and Nadia sacrifices herself to detonate another grenade at point blank range and kill the Goliath, but the creature survives. As Foster and Steve make it out to safety, their escape device triggers an explosion which causes the ship to sink. Foster and Steve eventually get picked up by a helicopter.
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