The made-for-TV Eye of the Beast (2007) offers a giant squid migrated into a huge Canadian lake (go with it). The practical effects of squid tentacles are really bad, and the one time we see the body, it's worse (almost as bad as the method they use to attack it.) And that's too bad, because the film is decently acted, directed, and shot, and the script is not terrible. There are some nice details and moments (e.g., a table where books include Ellis' one on the giant squid, the scene where the squid doubters are proven wrong, some moments of real tension, and a government biologist who's sent here as punishment because his boss doesn't like him). If set on a seacoast and with a better effects budget, it could have been a contender.
I’d never gotten around to watching Roger Corman’s 1980 classic Humanoids from the Deep, even (for some reason) when I was a teenager. What’s ok? A decent setting and camera work. An attempt at a scientific explanation for the monsters – impossible, but they made more of an effort than you’d expect from a film like this. The suits are actually not bad. They bear no relationship to what the token biologist describes as their origin process, but do manage to look creepy and unhuman. B movie and TV vets ng Doug McClure, Ann Turkel, and Vic Morrow get leading roles in this monsters-invade-small-town film. What’s not ok? It’s a Roger Corman film. Someone gets naked about a half-hour in and darned if beautiful women who were not cast for their acting ability don’t keep turning up. I’m sure teenage me’s first question would have been, “Where is this town, and when can I move there?” The ending, a variation from 1979’s Alien, wasn't a surprise. Push this one out to sea.
This 2022 film is at least unique in some ways. It's shot as
a documentary and played absolutely straight. It's the story of a fictitious
Native American tribe and two cryptozoologists (a handsome man and a beautiful
young woman, natch) trying to find and protect Willatuk. Willatuk is VERY
loosely based on some Native American mythology, but created in its present
form by the film's creator/director, Oliver Tuttle, a documentary writer and
musician, in a song recorded in 2011. It's being pursued by vengeful, racist,
and villainous fishermen. There's even psychological stuff about family
dynamics and abusive parenting. Many of the actors here don't even try to talk
like real people. The filmmaker took some pains with plenty of mentions of
cryptozoological lore and the creation of "true" old articles and
sighting reports, which even have specific dates. Weirdness: one fisherman
dives into the water and SWIMS in pursuit of the creature, while a
cryptozoologist shows off a device that - without even being submerged - can
track the animal by the urea concentration of its urine in an ocean of water. (Really.)
Congressman Jim McDermott, who represented this area until 2017, appears as
himself. It's all narrated by no less than Graham Greene, whose voice lends
this patchy but original film a bit of gravity it really doesn't deserve.
Matt Bille is a writer, historian, and naturalist living in Colorado Springs. He can be reached at mattsciwriter@protonmail.com. Website: www.mattbilleauthor.com.
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