The fishing vessel Solita crosses a storm during the night and the Skipper Will McKenna witnesses a weird creature attacking the crewman Joey. They return to the dock and Will has difficulties to pay the amount he owes to the former owner of the boat, Roy. The fish population is reducing in the area and the biologist Arden is investigating the possible causes. Meanwhile, Will's daughter Carly steals the keys of her father's cottage in a nearby island and plans to travel with her boyfriend Danny and their friends Erin and Drew to spend the weekend in the island. However, Drew is murdered by a deep sea predator on the dock and his pieces are found by Will and Arden. Carly, Danny and Erin do not have any news from their friend and travel to the island without Drew. Sooner Erin is murdered by the creature and Danny is bitten by a newborn reptile. Danny and Erin seek shelter in the cabin but they are trapped there by the creatures. In the continent, Will and Arden learn that the deep sea predator is a very dangerous species, after a series of lethal attacks, and they head to the island to rescue Carly. Overview: Paralytic-toxin-spitting, self-camouflaging monsters (ala "Predator") from the deep sea have come to shore and are killing people.<br/><br/>Troubles at sea, harbinger of death, and a mostly-invisible sea monster that spits a paralytic goo. Not bad, despite a start that seems slow due to wooden acting and what appears to be the setup for a pathetic, predictable storyline…. and it is.<br/><br/>The fact that the big monster has three young ones is a very cool twist, despite the questionable-par CGI renderings of the beasts. Of course the one guy who we know has seen them in the past is too terrified to talk, and apparently the town isn't fond of the ol' Corin Nemic wildly shooting at "nothing" on the beach. And of course the only other person who saw the thing AND HAS A PICTURE OF IT is too busy screwing around to do anything with it. Idiocy. Any person of average intelligence or higher would have that picture to the local authorities and/or to the news. Instead, he doesn't treat his quickly-infectious wound and goes back outside to where he saw a creature not of this *land* to where maybe he'll get chomped too. The brilliance of the script continues to unfold.<br/><br/>So here's the thing: I understand this is sci-fi, but come on! How do monsters *from the deep* now suddenly have arms and legs and become amazingly adept at hunting on land. Not only that, but they can run, leap, and alter their extremely interesting camouflage to their new surroundings without any problem whatsoever. Most cameo-critters require objects in their immediate vicinity to which to adapt themselves, yet our land-fish-monsters can openly leap through the air or walk on the beach and remain unseen. Although the Predator needed highly advanced alien technology to pull this off, apparently the deep sea and some quick evolution helped these guys out.<br/><br/>About an hour and fifteen minutes into it, things just turn more stupid. Suddenly every monster gathers at the island cabin, and three babies turn into about ten. Then, when finally all is quiet, the young couple leaves the safety of their room. More brilliant ideas from whoever wrote this movie. ("Hey, it's safe here… let's LEAVE!") In the last half hour (including commercials), the big momma(?) monster of course knows exactly where the human "kids" are. Why wouldn't it? Everything else in this flick defies logic, reason, and even pseudo-science. They might as well be psychic too. Suddenly it becomes a good idea to find a safe, secure room. Shocking. Of course the guy won't stay there. Safety=bad for males.<br/><br/>The big twist here is that the ship happens to contain the gigantic nest of the land-fish-monster. This now suddenly explains why there are so many of them. This, however, does not explain why they haven't been a problem until right now. You'd think that these monsters, in these numbers, would be consuming entire towns by now. But I digress…<br/><br/>Everything gets tied up nicely and neatly at the end with Daddy saved and all, despite being at ground zero in a large gas explosion. He didn't even lose his hair! We don't have the obligatory Sci-Fi ending kiss due to the boyfriend having been horribly slaughtered, but they need to mix it up now and then. It's all smiles and lack of bloody appendages here as the captain sails off to find his bounty once again. SEA BEAST is a rip-roaring little B-movie that shamelessly rips off the likes of PREDATOR in its tale of a marauding sea monster that comes up on land to stalk and eat hapless human prey, utilising its ability to make its invisible in the meantime. Hell, at one point the hero even says "It bleeds…" and you can almost see the scriptwriters winking at the viewers.<br/><br/>Like most B-movies, this film has its problems. The direction is slightly meandering, but at least the director avoids that annoying and pointless shaky-cam so beloved of B-flick helmers in recent years. The script is hardly polished; we're subjected to padded lines like "If we lose our heads, we're dead" and "I saw it…with my own eyes" and the no-name cast hardly give remarkable performances.<br/><br/>And yet, and yet, SEA BEAST is a lot of fun, it's hard to deny. The pacing is spot on, with the viewer thrown straight into the monster action - none of that slow build up nonsense here, just mayhem and death. The CGI effects are pretty poor, yes, but you feel the animators have at least tried to do what they can with the technology available.<br/><br/>And it's GORY, damn it! Entrails are strewn asunder and heads torn loose, all captured with loving relish. It's hard to dislike this stuff. At one point, the chief critter gives birth to lots of little critters, like in a scene from Emmerich's ill-advised GODZILLA, but SEA BEAST definitely has the edge on that movie, as unlike GODZILLA it's a real hoot!
Tannbel replied
344 weeks ago