Beyond Loch Ness

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.

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.

Apparently the truth in advertising laws have finally caught up to filmmakers, since after the Loch Ness-set opening scene, the rest of the movie moves to Lake Superior. That's certainly beyond Loch Ness. Though in both of those locations, it's obvious that, if you know even a little bit about geography, that the location the filmmakers used for both Loch Ness and Lake Superior looks NOTHING like how those locations look in real life.

That's just one of the problems I had with this movie. But first, is there anything of merit in the movie? Well, I thought that for a cheap Canadian movie, the CGI used was above average. In fact, the CGI creatures actually look better that the animatronics built for when there are close-ups of the creatures. (I never thought I would say that about a movie.) Also, there is some serviceable splatter here and there.

But the biggest problems I had with the movie center around this fact: You will have seen all of this before. For examples, the characters. We have the mysterious stranger who comes to town, we have the arrogant rich jerk who has it in for the youthful protagonist for no apparent reason, etc. etc. All the monster hunting and fighting, you will have seen it all before. Maybe, just maybe, if this was all directed with some spark and injecting a little originality now and then, it could have been a pleasant display of the familiar. But everything seems very tired, and you'll feel just as tired by the end of the movie.

Certainly not a movie to pay to see. Even if it's free and it's raining outside, you'd be better off going out for a walk in the rain.

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.

"Loch Ness Terror" is perhaps the most scientifically incorrect monster movie of all time, and that is precisely what makes it so much fun. I learned that Plesiosaurs look like a cross between the "Loch Ness Monster" and the "Flub-A-Dub". Plesiosaurs waddle around on land and cannot see you if you remain motionless, but a 40 ft. Plesiosaur can easily sneak up on unsuspecting fisherman and eat them. Small fry Plesiosaurs like to hide in speedboats to scare people. Plesiosaurs can travel from Europe to North America through under ocean tunnels. A real Plesiosaur hunter looks like he just walked out of a "Spaghetti Western", complete with cigar, duster, and a weak Clint Eastwood imitation. I could go on and on. By not taking itself seriously, the movie succeeds as entertainment, where so many others have failed. Recommended. - MERK