The Ocean ... it takes up three quarters of our planet ... it’s a
mysterious world full of colors, life and danger. Dating all the way back to
the days of Christopher Columbus, sailors feared their ships would be taken
down by sea monsters. In other words ... the ocean is the perfect setting for stories
that revolve around terrifying creatures that hide in the deep, and strike
without warning. Author Peter Benchley has wrote several novels revolving
around the terrors of the Ocean, with his most famous book being none other than “Jaws”. So famous, it would later be adapted
into a land mark motion picture film, but that’s not the story I’ll be talking
about in this review. When I was a child, I grew up in Hawaii, and every time
my parents took me out to the beach, I’d always spot sail boats out in the
distance, and I’d always fear that they’d be taken down by Giant Squids. That
was always my biggest child hood fear of the ocean, it wasn’t sharks or jellyfish
... it was always giant squids. So, for my October animals unleashed month, I
couldn’t help but do a quick review of the 1996 TV movie based on Peter Benchley’s
novel titled “The Beast” ... which is a story
about a monstrous giant squid.
This is the only made
for TV movie that I’ll be reviewing for this month’s marathon, because of all
the film’s I’ve seen revolving around giant squids, I think this one’s as good
as they get. Obviously, “20000 Leagues
Under the Sea” and “Voyage to the
Bottom of the Sea” are both much better movies, but they don’t count
because they only feature giant squids, and neither movies are actually about the
squid. So, like I said back there in the intro, this movie is based on Peter
Benchley’s novel “The Beast”, and
Benchleys name was even included in the title of this movie. However, to be
very straight forward, the film only loosely connects to the original book, and
on its own, this isn’t a terrible movie, but I probably wouldn’t call it a
great one either. Our story is set in a Pacific Northwest resort community
called Grave’s Point. A couple on their yacht mysteriously disappear one night,
and soon other locals, and visitors discover that the area is no longer safe ... all due to a giant squid that’s come to their area do to a short supply of food.
One local fisherman teams up with a marine biologist, and a female coast guard
officer to come up with a plan to either capture the squid or drive it out to
sea. However, a harbor master wants that squid dead, so he places a bounty on
the creature, which draws the attention of several hunters that want the money.
At first they seem successful in killing the squid, only to discover that it
was an infant squid they killed. Now the mother is royally pissed off, and
unleashes her vengeance on the whole area.
I’m not going
to lie, if you're hoping for a fast paced monster film, with lots of awesome giant
squid action, you’ll probably be disappointed with this film. That’s not to say
it doesn’t have some cool squid attacks, but the majority of the film plays out
in a similar tone and style to “Jaws”,
where all the attention and focus goes to the people first. The creators behind
this film clearly want this to come off as a more mature, and respectable movie
rather than just a mindless creature feature, which is ambitious, but that
doesn’t make the movie memorable or re-watchable either. Even though it is an
admirable effort, it just doesn’t reach the same high quality of “Jaws”. The characters in this film are
slightly better than your typical monster movie survivors, but not by much. I
certainly give credit to the actors, as there at least trying to make their
performances come off as believable as possible, but they just can’t escape
their stereo-type trappings or admittedly clichéd scenes. Perhaps if the movie
was shorter it wouldn’t have been much of a problem ... unfortunately, this movie drags
on at a run time of 176 minutes, which is insane. With a run time like that,
you need some larger than life characters, and some killer action scenes.
While I don’t
know for sure, I think the giant squid itself is only given maybe 7 minutes of
screen time total, at least that’s what it feels like. I will say that the
squid effects are actually very good, blending in just enough life-like
animatronics, and puppet work with the CG effects. Even though the movie’s long
run-time makes it challenging to sit though, it did still generate just enough
excitement whenever the beast attacks. I can’t really say the film came off as
scary, but it certainly captured just enough of my childhood tension of a
giant squid that would terrorize sailors. The climax is the most fun the movie
gets as the squid attacks a fishing boat, and our hero’s have one final
showdown during a rain storm. While this battle is going on, the movie cuts
back to our main hero’s little girl, who’s at home baking dinner, hoping that
her father would return soon for supper. A scene like this probably could have
worked in a more serious film, but it just doesn’t work when we cut back to her
dad in an over the top situation like fighting a giant squid monster.
Now to be
as fare as possible, this film aired as a miniseries split into two parts, so it
really wasn’t meant to be watched in one sitting. Also, by the standards of a
TV made movie, it’s actually quite impressive on some level, and at times it
almost feels like something that could have been released in the theater. The
problem once again is that it’s very long, and while I wouldn’t call the film a
complete waste of time, I couldn’t imagine sitting though this film more than
once. There’s just no re-watch value to it, and if you’re going to watch a
movie that’s over 3 hours long, make sure it’s something with more substance
than this. I do wish that there were more monster movies revolving around giant
squids, especially considering how many shark movies there are. It seems that
for the moment, this is the closet we’ll ever get to having a really good giant
squid movie, and for what it is, Peter Benchley’s “The Beast” really isn’t terrible. The acting is good, the action is passable, and even the squid effects are awesome by this films standards. It’s by no means a great film, not
even on the grounds of B monster movies, and it just falls somewhere in the middle
of OK and serviceable.
Thanks for reading my review of the 1996 B-List horror movie “The Beast” ... and continue to enjoy the movies you Love!
Budget
ReplyDelete