Sea Beast

Sony Home Entertainment

R4 DVD

Overall this film looks like a cross between Predator and Creature From The Black Lagoon, but its strength is in its tight scripting, good acting and some really good CGI. Add some spectacular scenery from the American northwest and you have a gripping little monster film.

The plot – a mutated semi-transparent amphibious sea monster is eating people. The first one to see it, fisherman Will McKenna, is laughed at by the locals. As more people disappear or are found in partly eaten bits it becomes clear that he may have been right. We have the compulsory kids holidaying on a nearby island, the grizzled old fisherman who isn’t afraid of anything from the sea, and the usual host of people who have “fishfood” written all over them. We also have the attractive marine biologist to explain the what and how of the monster. Let the slaughter begin.

The monster appears to be almost immune to gunfire and all the other conventional killing methods. About all that seems to work in the beginning is a well-swung axe, and who wants to get that close to a monster with a powerful ten-foot tongue that can drag you right into its mouth?

Matters take a turn for the worse when they find that the monster is female and has laid a clutch of eggs somewhere nearby. Its young are infesting the islands and are just as dangerous as Mother. Now they must destroy Mother, her young and her eggs.

Although the plot is conventional the film gains strength from the sweeping scenery shots – it doesn’t look like it has been made in a studio with a truckload of rental plants. The CGI gives one of the best monsters since the Korean film The Host, and the monster has more than a passing resemblance to that creature.

It may be derivative but I quite enjoyed the film. There seems to be a revival in monster films lately, and there should be more as good as this one.

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This review will appear in Volume 3 No. 4 of the digital and print edition of Synergy Magazine.

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