Sea Fever is a 2019 science fiction horror thriller film written and directed by Neasa Hardiman, starring Hermione Corfield, Dougray Scott and Connie Nielsen. The film follows the crew of a marooned fishing trawler, who find themselves threatened by a parasitic infection.
Siobhan, a PhD student studying deep sea faunal behavioral patterns, purchases a place on the fishing trawler the Niamh Cinn Óir, crewed by a complement of six: Captain Freya and her husband/skipper Gerard, who are grieving for their daughter Niamh, ship engineer Omid Hamilton Accie, Johnny, Ciara, and Sudi Hamilton Accie. As they set off, the Irish Coast Guard alerts them that their planned destination, which is rich with fish, is in an exclusion zone. Unbeknownst to the others and despite Freya’s orders, Gerard takes them into the zone anyway, as he needs a large haul of fish on this outing to keep the ship.
In the exclusion zone, the boat runs into an unknown, shoal-like object and stops. Omid discovers strange breaches in the hull that exude a blue-green slime. Gerard thinks they are barnacles. As Siobhan has diving gear onboard for her research, Gerard sends her armed with a knife to cut the boat free. Underwater, she sees the things stuck to the boat are the tentacles of an enormous bio-luminescent organism below. Hearing this, Gerard thinks it may be a newly discovered form of giant squid. The crew attempt to capture it with the net, but the creature is too heavy. While releasing the net, Johnny’s sleeve is caught in the machinery. Although freed, his hand is sliced by the rope, which is contaminated by slime.