Il mistero di Loch Ness

As a Scot, when I saw this film, I was left numbed at how shocking it was and I don't mean that in a good way. This 'film' (and I use that term in the loosest sense of the word) is not only an insult to Scotland but it is embarrassing for the Hollywood producers and actors involved in this project.

Aside from the fact the storyline dire and the acting utterly bland, the special effects look as if they were put together by three-year-olds on their nursery school computer . However, the most pathetic point about this film was the fact it clearly was not set anywhere remotely near the UK, let alone Loch Ness. It was bad enough that the cast were mainly Americans (or Americans with bad accents) but the cars drove on the wrong side of the road, the police wore American uniforms and little effort was made to even pretend the American location of this film was supposedly Scotland. Then you had the stereotypical Scots who graced the background every so often; I honestly was waiting for them to shout 'och, aye the noo' then do the Highland fling in their kilt with the haggis dancing by their sides.

Take a leaf out of Nessie's book when it comes to 'Beneath Loch Ness' and hide far, far away from it (although Scots may want to see it with the view that it is pure comedy in a 'so bad it's good' way).

This film was a very poor effort.

The storyline followed that of "Jaws" quite closely, The experts who no one would believe, the constable who was more concerned with the tourist trade, remember the Mayor in Jaws, wouldn't close the loch.

A really big bad sea creature, Patrick Bergin as a dedicated lunatic trying to kill it, Remember Quint from Jaws.

The storyline was thin, had nothing original, and was more ridiculous than thrilling.

The dialogue coaches, however, are a totally different matter. They should be taken as far away from Hollywood as possible, and never let near the place again. The accents were shockingly bad, perhaps the worst I have heard in a film, James Doohan as Scotty, in Star Trek was a John Geilgud performance compared to this. The accents made the film funny and silly were is should not have been.

In truth, the accents were more Northern Irish than Scottish, try to think of Liam Neeson talking with a clothes peg on his nose and you'll get the idea.

It is apparant, that this was a really low budget, badly thought out, badly prepared attempt at film making, I would suggest that a few of the correspondants in this forum could get together for a week or so, have a few beers and come up with something a lot better.

In all, a bit of a waste of videotape really.

My local movie house are showing this film which frankly is an insult to movie-goers as it is so bad its not even worth a video release. The title tells you what its about and watching it gives the impression it was made up as it went along. The acting is dreadful especially from the lady playing the blond news producer. In fact to show the contempt that the the movie makers have for the viewing public they don't even bother about people with Irish accents pretending to be Scottish. This film has no humour, no imagination, and no thrills. To call it a 'B' picture would be an insult to that genre.

This had to be one of the biggest wastes of celluloid of all time(next to that Blair Witch thing). Blockbuster should be made to refund the money of those who thought they were renting a movie. The same, old plot devices were used (i.e. the idiot mayor/constable refusing to close the beach/loch at the height of tourist season, a smaller animal caught that was not the right one, the crusty old sea captain/fisherman with a score to settle ). I swear, I think someone even used the phrase "this was no boating accident". If Speilburg and Blatty didn't sue these guys for blatant plagerism and or copyright infringment, they should have. On the suck scale of one to five vacumn cleaners,(5 being the worst), this gets a seven.

I was so excited to see this video at Blockbuster. Having visited Loch Ness and loving monster stories, I was looking forward to seeing scenes of Scotland (blink and you miss them), hearing Scottish accents (terrible), and enjoying a campy monster movie (strike three - you're out). I found the portrayal of the local Scots to be totally insulting. The movie wasn't campy, just bad. Obviously a play-by-play rip off of JAWS.

I would be willing to watch it again if I were with the same friends who studied in Scotland with me and we were rip-roaring drunk. That way we could make fun of it together.