Behemoth

Maneater Series

RHI Entertainment

R1 DVD

It seems that when the world is pushed too far, a creature rises from the deep to take revenge. In the words of Professor Walsh “The world pushed too far in any direction will push back!” Behemoth is a Sci Fi chanel original film from director W.D. Hogan. It is a B grade monster film with elements of the old creature feature and influences of Godzilla and Japanese monster films.

The once quiet town of Ascension is rocked to its heels when a dormant volcano begins to grumble. But Special Agents from the DOD soon discover evidence of an ancient enormous beast, the Behemoth, ready to rise from its earthen grave. It’s up to our heroes to locate the DODs special weapon and destroy the monster before it’s too late!

The film has obviously been made on a limited budget with acting and plot which are adequate but not great. The major problem is the lack of suspense, while the film builds a range of characters and plot elements, there just isn’t any real sense of terror. The creature does not appear until a long way into the film and surprisingly does little damage. From a great Behemoth the size of the mountain all he does he causes a few earthquakes, cause some havoc with the locals and is responsible for one or two killings. There is no body count and few human creature interactions.

Finally, in a true anticlimax, he gets shot with a handheld nuclear weapon of some sort and love and family triumphs in the end and the little town of Ascension goes back to its comfortable country lifestyle.

I have watched a lot of B grade films and it is amazing what you can do on a limited budget but here the money seems to have been wasted. The creature looks great yet it just doesn’t work. There was so much potential in this film yet it has never been realized. In my mind it is not a lack of money that has caused the problem but a lack of creativity.

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