21. Deep Blue Sea

One of the most common and ancient themes of horror is that of human transgression of the "natural" world. In Western Mythology this history of transgression begins with Prometheus's giving to humankind the ambiguous gift of fire, which introduced humanity's first alienation from the natural world as its preference for the "cooked" over the "raw," and for civilization over the wild. And this alienation has only increased over time as humanity has learned to separate itself from nature through "Pharmakon" (medicine) and "Techne" (technology). The transgressive nature of human progress is, perhaps, captured most famously when Eve partakes and then offers Adam the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. So, perhaps it is fitting that it is a Daughter of Eve (tongue in cheek), Dr. Susan Mcalester, played by Saffron Burrows who is both the initiator and the demise of the "Deep Blue" project. Deep Blue is a controversial genetic engineering effort to find a pharmacological technology for curing Alzheimer's by producing giant Mako sharks for their amazingly reparative brains, which may offer a biological solution to the horrible disease's infamous recalcitrance. But nature does not like to be violated, especially when it is in the form of a Mako Shark. But, is curing Alzheimer's worth whatever consequences may follow? 

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