Movie Review - Behemoth: The Sea Monster

Behemoth:  The Sea Monster

AKA:  The Giant Behemoth

1959 

The Cast

Now, let me tell you I could be a little biased here with my scoring. For this film lit the light of remembrance and melancholy within me.   As it took me back to my childhood.  There was a time when the good old BBC would play these movies on a Saturday afternoon:  On BBC2 while BBC1 had Grandstand.  I remember watching these Sci-Fi monster flicks with my Nan on cold and wet winter days, usually in front of a warm gas fire.  Those were good days.  So, I thank the makers of the film for giving me this memory.

What you have is a pretty bog-standard tale of nuclear radiation mutation... as was par for the course in the fifties.  Here though, not only does it mutate a creature to an enormous size, but apparently resurrects a long-dead dinosaur.  This then goes on the rampage through London.  Though what makes this a little better than the average film in this genre is the extra details.  We don't start in London but in a little fishing village in Cornwall where strange things have been occurring; a man being burned with 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree burns, shoals of dead fish washing up on the beach, and strange lights under the surface of the sea.  This pulls the viewer in with the mystery.  There's also the brilliant usage of the radiation because if you get too close to the creature then you burn.  When we arrive at the rampage, the director uses parts of London not fully rebuilt after the war to create an atmosphere that works well.  Also, the large amount of extra's running from the monster is just right - not one or two people, but a hole streets worth of men and women.

The director is very good at his work.  He sets the pace of this film perfectly.  There's a small crescendo at the beginning when Marine Biologist Steve Karnes' is warning the government about the possible side effects of radiation on the oceans and their populace.  Then drops to a steadier pace with the mysterious happenings.  Building up slowly to the rampage at the climax.  Spot on perfect.

The special effects, for their time, are not quite as good as others.  However, they are passable.  It's nice the puppeteer changed out to a fully automated Behemoth for the later scenes as the fixed mouth version that attacked the ferry looked a little silly.  I have to admit I really loved the part where the Behemoth walks through the dockyards.  The part where he wrecks one crane by tearing it apart with his teeth and the other by simply walking through it is one of the better stop animation sequences I've seen.  I liked the fact the director filmed it from the position of the pavement, which had the effect of giving size to the creature.

This was a very enjoyable flick, to say the least.  The story and the filming were solid as too was the acting.  Everybody put their skills into making this a very watchable movie.  Not remembering the movie fully, I thought that the two main characters in the fishing village section Jean (Madison) and John (Turner) would be in the whole show, their acting is that good.  However, when we leave the village we never see them again.

If you've never caught a '50's sci-fi monster flick then this one would be a nice place to start.  And if you are a fan of the genre, then find a copy and watch this once more, it's worth it.

I give this a behemoth 7 out of 10.

The Trailer

Movie Review - Lake Placid 2

Lake Placid 2

2007

The Cast

Oh, My GOD!!!

How to take a dump on a decent film.  After the successfulness of the first flick it was inevitable a sequel would rear its ugly head... and boy is it ugly.

I originally watched this on its DVD release, though I must have forced myself to forget how bad the story and film really are.  I can't even say which is the worst as just about everything about this stinks, like a swamp in summer.  The story is pretty lame and even though there were officials on the scene in the original, for some reason those events appear to have been covered up as everybody believes it was an urban myth.  Even when they are presented with the facts they don't want to believe.  

Then there's the acting which is dire to say the best.  Though I've never rated John Schneider (Sheriff Riley) to be a great actor I did believe he was better than in this movie.  I'm not sure if Flores was going for camp characters or not, but he failed if he was.  The worst accent award goes to Sam McMurray (Struthers) his Irish Lilt was cringeworthy.  Even the likes of Cloris Leachman (Sadie Bickerman) couldn't lift this out of the silt at the bottom of the lake.  To be honest, it was the supporting cast that were probably the best actors in the whole thing.

Though I have to say, it could have been the director's fault for the characterisations, as he does call the shots.  Take the teenage rebels.  If they were wrote this unrealistically by Hurvitz and Miller it should have been Flores duty to make them more believable.  He failed.  These are basically your standard stereotypical bad-boys.  Though I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a parody of the genre and a joke in itself.  Since the rest of the film is rubbish it's hard to differentiate.

Then there's the CGI.  Okay, so this was back in 2007 but it's still no excuse for some of the animation.  There's a lot of no thought gone into the making of this film and most are in the CGI scenes.  There are way too many scenes where the "dinner" is in shallow water but somehow the giant crocodile swims up out of the deep...  These crocs are also adept at pulling their prey from the shore or jetty.  Not sure how they do it... maybe their tongues have evolved into something similar to frogs...

This is a bad film... and I usually love bad films.  However, this has nothing good to recommend it to anyone.  If you've watched the first Lake Placid, then I would advise you to watch that one again.  Even if it's the hundredth viewing, you'll  still get more enjoyment from that film than this.

I give this sequel a Crocodile Kiss of 2.75 out of 10. 

The Trailer