La Terreur du Loch Ness

I never went into this expecting a particularly good movie, with a title like Loch Ness Terror, who would? So, when it finished, I got what I expected. The plot is nonsensical, there are lapses in logic, clichéd characters and sub-plots everywhere, poor CGI and an ending that is beyond anti-climatic. Basically, the film revolved around a grizzled (and unintentional Clint Eastwood rip-off?) cryptozoologist who witnessed his father consumed by Nessie many years ago. Thrown into the mix is a "crazy" uncle who claims to have seen the beast, a sheriff whose husband passed away and is now looking after a son. Surprise surprise, he is still in love with his ex-girlfriend who is now dating a rich jerk! If that is not the most predictable and boring story you have heard of, please tell of another...

Honestly, none of the actors are any good. Brian Krause, who plays Clint Eastwood...I mean James Murphy (zoologist) has it all. The hat, the scar, the cigar, the low voice...not Eastwood at all! All the other performers are just as bad (well, maybe except the old deputy guy, he was pretty funny). At times I was rooting for the dinosaur to eat them, as I could not stand their presence any longer. And on the topic of the dinosaur, could it be any faker? Honestly, there has been numerous cases of sub-par CGI, but this tops them all. All the digital effects stand out to the point where they look like cutouts from a video game. The gore could have been a tad redeeming, if it had looked somewhat mediocre instead of pathetic.

Paul Ziller, the director, has not got a shred of noticeable talent. The POV shots are unoriginal and poorly done (Jaws much?) and for a horror film, there are zero scares. In fact, if this were a comedy it would be excellent, as I found myself laughing through pretty much the entire running time of 74 minutes. When the end comes around, it is so lackluster it is almost hard to believe. Recommended for lovers of bad films and people who love a good laugh.

½/5

Some of the early victims find out all too late that the 40-foot Plesiosaur is not the placid, gentle giant that minds its own business paddling around the Loch as we've been told, but a rampaging monolith with an attitude that likes to waddle its way out of the water, wreck boats, roar like a foghorn, chase victims, bite them in half (it doesn't eat them whole, for whatever reason), dismember, decapitate, etc.

And it swam its way through some "undersea tunnel" (about 4,000 miles long?) from Scotland's Loch Ness to North America's Lake Ontario. No, really. It did. A vengeful scientist. a cross of Capt. Ahab and Indy Jones, wants to get even with the thing, having witnessed it devour his dad and two other men. The guy comes complete with all the clichés: an Australian safari hat, enough fire power to blow up a city, and he mumbles when he talks.

The movie plays like a remake of Lake Placid, which in turn was an apparent satire of Jurassic Park and Jaws type flicks. However, this one seems to want to take itself seriously. The actors play it this way, and make most of the characters work (even the clichéd ones).

The biggest problem was shoddy CGI. In one attack sequence, for example, Nessie decapitates its victim. Nessie's animation is so obviously pasted on to the picture it makes you laugh. Even phonier looking is the resulting "blood spray" which looks like somebody blew up a bottle of Cherry Soda (and pasted that in poorly, as well).

Decently entertaining, and at least it was free.

I have to admit that I'm a sucker for monster movies, particularly of the "aquatic beast eats people" variety. Here is a modern example of the genre, and folks, it ain't bad at all.

It is very conscious of it's roots. It's ancestors are films like "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", and "The Giant Behemoth", both staples of my childhood. The monster is not really a plesiosaur, as the cryptozoologist in the movie calls it, but a real Hollywood fantasy beast, and a darned cute one at that. Against all the notions of modern paleontology it waddles about on all fours, belly to the ground and head held high. It owes it's appearance to the earlier films' notions of what "dinosaurs" looked like, and owes more to the nineteenth century reconstructions of Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope than it does to actual scientific fact. All for the better. This isn't "Jurassic Park", this is "Oh my god there's a monster loose and we gotta stop it!" movie.

An old fashioned monster movie with modern cgi, and a goodly amount of blood n' guts. I have no problem with gore in movies like this. It's only a movie, boys and girls, it's special effects, and my reaction is usually not "yuck! No sleep for me tonight" but rather, "that's interesting,I wonder how they did that?" Does that make me a bad person? I think not.

An interesting story, decent production values, adequate acting, and every cliché in the book all add up to a funfest for watery creature fans everywhere. And the baby monsters are a real hoot. A nice refreshing change from the slew of copycat teen slasher and torture porn flicks we've been bombarded with lately.

I had a good time watching this one.

Not content with stomping round the world getting up to all sorts of nefarious mischief now it seems the Yanks also want to steal our monsters.

Well the joke's on them this time because you see...it's not the real Nessie.

Being Scottish I have, of course, met Nessie and be assured all ye across the pond, she doesn't remotely resemble the ridiculous waddling monstrosity portrayed in this moving penny dreadful. In fact anyone in the know is fully aware that Nessie appeared as herself in the Doctor Who tale 'Terror of the Zygons' and became, during the production, a personal friend of Tom Baker (there are even rumours of a brief romance), so I can only presume the producers of this nonsense were disgracefully lax in their research.

Now stick to your own monsters in future or we'll set Gorgo's mother onto you.

I wanted to like Beyond Loch Ness, as I liked the idea. And I have to say that and the acting, which is not great but at least adequate, are the only redeeming values of the movie. Plus at least it is better than something like Warbirds, which also had Brian Krause(and he was the sole redeeming quality of that movie). Other than that, it was a mess. The special effects are terrible, with Nessie especially abominable in look and movement, the editing is haphazard, the colour schemes right at the beginning is much too grainy and the gore is lame, not disturbing in the slightest and as cheap as the effects. The film is also full of clichés not just in the stereotyped characters but also in the cheesy dialogue and the often tedious and over-familiar story. All in all, a beyond mediocre movie, more like lame. 3/10 Bethany Cox