Terreur en haute mer

Cryptozoologist Dr. Pena (Giancarlo Esposito) finally captures his long-sought-after chupacabra specimen on a Caribbean island. He has plans to transport it back to civilization, and tries to smuggle it as cargo on a luxury cruise ship with disastrous results.

While there's little ingenuity to the plot--just by hearing the premise and seeing a cast list, most genre fans could fill in the blanks, Chupacabra: Dark Seas is a fairly enjoyable film that obviously does not take itself too seriously and has little pretension to being a masterpiece. While it's nowhere near as funny as it maybe should be given that kind of self-awareness (think Lake Placid (1999) or any number of Troma films), it still earned a 7 out of 10 from me.

7 out of 10s, in my way of looking at scores, are equivalent to the grade of "C", or in other words, they're just average. Basically, they're doing as many things wrong as they're doing right. Let's look at the flaws first: The strangest flaw, especially given the Sci-Fi Channel's other recent original films (like the very good Larva (2005)) is that director John Shepphird never manages to rise above a "made for television" feel. Add that the film is set on a cruise ship, and it's suddenly just a monster on "The Love Boat" (1977).

While the dialogue doesn't take itself very seriously, at times it is a bit too hokey for its own good. Also, in that context, most of the clichés (and there are a lot of them) would be better spoofed than played seriously, as they are.

Like far too many post-Predator films, the Chupacabra has fluorescent green blood.

There is a bit of a Starship Troopers-angle, but again it's not taken far enough. It would have been better as a spoof.

Captain Randolpp (John Rhys-Davies, in an incredible casting coup) has an incongruous daughter--a kind of "Bimbo Buffy" who is too ridiculous in context to take seriously, but not quite ridiculous enough to be really funny. She is a pleasure to look at, of course, and that was probably the point.

Speaking of ridiculous, the plot is occasionally so. For example, a "Starship Trooper" throws a grenade in a small room full of explosive materials, and right at people he is trying to save. Or, a guy at the Navy station is able to spot three survivors from the ship in his binoculars, even though it was stated that the ship was 10 miles out to sea from the station.

There are some funny low-budget moves, such as milking the fire suit for all it's worth. It's one those things where you can hear them saying, "We paid for the suit and this stuntman; we're damn well going to show every frame of footage".

However, the film did just as many things right: Even though the plot is predictable, full of clichés and so on, it usually works. There aren't too many illogical moves, and it is entertaining if not suspenseful.

Surprisingly, there were a lot of accuracies about cruise ships. I worked on cruise ships as a musician for a few years a while ago, and Chupacabra: Dark Seas captures the feel of a real ship enough that it uncovered some long-buried memories for me. There were also many subtle, spot-on jokes about cruise ship culture.

I was actually impressed with the creature. I liked the costume a lot. Although it's becoming a bit clichéd and doesn't exactly make sense in this context, I also thought the jerky cgi-movement was cool.

There was a nice amount of well-done gore, especially considering that this is a film made for the Sci-Fi Channel, and one fantastic body-cut-in-half scene.

I thought the ship effects were done well (it seemed to be a combination of cgi and miniatures). I loved a couple of the cgi sky effects, and occasionally, we were treated to great cinematography.

The performances were better than they needed to be for a film of this caliber. Some had just the right balance of campiness and seriousness. It's just too bad that I can't say that about the film overall.

The bottom line: Chupacabra: Dark Seas is definitely worth watching as long as you lower your expectations and just expect to have fun with a predictable, slightly tongue-in-cheek, goofy creature flick.

I didn't know what to expect when I began watching Chupacabra on the Sci-Fi Channel, I've heard of the mythical creature through folklore, however after only a few moments I just couldn't pull myself away. Sure it was a Saturday night cheesy monster movie, but I wasn't really looking for it to be any more than that. As far as some of the special effects go, the design of the creature was definitely unique and different, I just wish the CG enhancement would have been better. I have seen a couple other versions of Chupacabra movies before and this one certainly had the best looking creature of them all. Kudos to the FX guys and Mr. Sheppard. Hope Sci-Fi replays this movie again so I can set my VCR and add this to my collection or maybe hope for a DVD release. All in all I enjoyed the movie very much and hope to see more creature movies come out of Regent Entertainment and Sci-Fi....

Dr. Pena (Giancarlo Esposito), a "crypto-zoologist" (fancy term for one of those self-deluded losers who likes to study extremely rare - read: nonexistent - animals) and his crew of hunters manage to trap a Chupacabra, a big, scaly, elusive fast-moving beast. To get it to the mainland, they smuggle it on a Grecian cruise ship and some idiots open up the crate containing it despite being told specifically not to. I guess the strange growling noises coming from inside weren't a good enough deterrent either. The monster then does the monster thang; running around biting chunks out of various passengers until the ship's captain (John Rhys-Davies), a square-jawed special agent pretending to be an insurance salesman for some reason (Dylan Neal), a squeaky-voiced blonde Tai Bo instructor (Chelan Simmons), a bunch of guys with machine guns and others try to stop it. The main victims (who I think are supposed to be the comic relief but it's hard to tell) are an old rich bitch (Paula Shaw) with a yippy terrier and a snobby effete gold-digger (David Millbern). Apparently the monster can be knocked out with a single tranquilizer dart, but can live through dozens of bullet hits. The Chupacabra design is acceptable (though unoriginal) but the rest of the movie is devoid of suspense, surprise or interest. A boring Sci-Fi Channel "original" movie; they've made dozens of movies just like this with nearly interchangeable characters and plots, but with slight alterations on the creature. Enough already!

Otherwise known as Chupacabra: Dark Seas this notable Scyfy Original type isn't as bad as I expected.

Starring industry veteran John Rhys-Davies and the annoyingly annoying Chelan Simmons it tells the story of a cryptozoologist that captures a chupacabra and smuggles it on board a luxury cruise liner as means of transporting it. I'm sure I don't need to say anything more for you to understand exactly how the movie plays out.

Unexpectedly it did go in a couple of directions I didn't expect. Though the cast are lackluster the character development is solid, the practical effects are above par and overall it's really not that bad.

On the flipside however the cgi is poor, it's cliched to hell as you'd expect and did I mention how annoying Chelan Simmons is? Seriously, that girl has no place in the movie industry whatsoever.

Take your brain out stuff, not good by any stretch of the imagination but for what it is there's considerably worse out there.

The Good:

John Rhys-Davies

Passable practical effects

Fairly decent characters

Good setting

The Bad:

Needless animal death

Poor cgi

Chelan Simmons

Yet another bland Sci-Fi movie, this time involving a monster that is immune to bullets but not Tae-bo. Some of it is well-done, and the Chucacabra does look scary. But I thought the most interesting, and slightly disturbing, element was the human victims... they are immortal! They can't be killed! At one point, the Chucacabra tears a guy in half, leaving his intestines spilling all over the room, and he WAKES UP after supposedly dying! Yes, all of sudden he comes to, sees his guts on the floor, and starts screaming. How he managed to wake up from a cozy nap with 50% of his body missing is beyond me.

Also note-worthy is the man who gets his throat ripped out by the Chupacabra, and lays on the floor moaning. The other characters can do nothing to help him, and leave him to die. Well, about 10 minutes later, this guy gets up and starts staggering around the hall! It's like "Night of the Living Dead!" Other than the Victims That Wouldn't Die, however, the rest of this isn't too interesting. It is pretty silly and formulaic. I would only recommend this to hardcore B-movie fans.

4/10 stars.