So, what do you think would be the worst possible way to die?

After seeing the new schlock horror flick “Deep Rising,” I know the answer to that question. Imagine you’ve just sat down in the bathroom to … well, you know.

Maybe you’re reading a magazine, or maybe you’re just sitting there. Suddenly you’re sucked into the toilet by a giant worm with a big, toothy mouth, to a grizzly, watery demise.

With scenes like that, obviously you must approach this movie with the right attitude. If you go in with the wrong attitude, you’ll miss a very good example of what “Deep Rising” is. You have to go in thinking “this is going to be pretty bad, but hopefully it will be entertaining.”

“Deep Rising” is a good example of its genre. Namely, the cheesy attack-of-the-people-eating-creature-nobody-has-ever-seen-before flick. There’s a blue print all of these movies must follow, whether its “Tremors” (the perfect example of this film type) or “Anaconda.”

The cast of stereotype characters must be isolated and cut off from the rest of the world. Then, the still mostly unseen creature must start picking off some of the lesser characters one by one. At this point, anyone who has had three or less lines is pretty much a goner. Eventually, the surviving members of the cast figure out what is going on.

This leads to the inevitable small victory, where everyone thinks the creature is destroyed. Of course, it’s not. Things escalate, more people get eaten, until the final showdown when the whole creature is revealed. Then it gets destroyed after eating most of the cast.

“Deep Rising” follows that plan perfectly.

Take one dead-in-the-water luxury cruise ship. Put it in the middle of the ocean, hundreds of miles from anywhere.

Make sure all of the passengers have mysteriously disappeared when would-be thieves come on board. Throw in a bunch of giant, vicious, man-eating sea worms and let the fun begin.

The best thing about this movie is it doesn’t forget the most important element of a successful campy creature feature: the humor. This movie is smartly written and very funny.

The jokes, sight gags and one-liners come at you fairly quickly, so you have to pay attention. Things are funny even when they don’t intend to be.

Take this as an example: when we come upon a roomful of half-digested human remains (basically a bunch of skeletons covered in a Jello-like substance), someone comments that things are a real mess. The smart-ass comeback? “Well, let me call housekeeping.”

OK, it’s not all that amusing out of context. But trust me, there are plenty of humorous goings on in this movie. The only bad thing is it has a very sluggish start. I think it was trying to have a plot or something. And the final confrontation with the really big worm isn’t as satisfying as it should have been.

“Deep Rising” works because it doesn’t for a minute take itself very seriously. It’s high-quality trash and knows that.

Sure, it’s a bad movie, but it’s a good bad movie. You fans of “Tremors” and “Anaconda” out there know exactly what I’m talking about.

If all else fails, this is a good movie for people (like me) who are getting sick of hearing about “Titanic” and how much money it’s made and how much Oprah loved it and how many Oscars it is going to win and how cute Leonardo DiCaprio is and how Titanic fever is gripping the world.

“Deep Rising” is the much needed anti-“Titanic.”

3 1/2 stars out of five

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Mike Milik is a senior in advertising from West Des Moines.