Movies about sea monsters have been ten a penny since, well, time began. JAWS helped revitalise the genre in the 1970s, forever banishing memories of campy '50s B-movie and making the monster actually FRIGHTENING. Since then, our screens have been deluged with octopi, giant squids, killer fish, piranha, made-up monsters of the deep, sharks, barracudas, you name it. This cheap television movie opts for the giant squid menace, a creature already tackled more than one, most prominently in THE BEAST, a '90s miniseries by Peter Benchley, the writer of JAWS himself. So why does EYE OF THE BEAST exist?
To make a buck or two. I can see no other reason for this movie. It's a completely unoriginal, seen-it-all before offering. You know the story by heart: there's a series of unexplained deaths at sea. A scientist turns up to investigate, enlisting a pretty policewoman to help. More people die. The locals are reluctant to stop fishing and there's plenty of antagonism. Eventually, evidence reveals the existence of the creature and the locals go out to sea to kill it. Blah blah blah...
It's pure hokum, not helped by the efforts of a less-than-impressive cast. I liked the Chilean actress playing the heroine, Alexandra Castillo, but that's about it. James Van Der Beek, from TV's DAWSON'S CREEK, is the hero, but he still feels like an out-of-his-league teenager to be honest: he commands no screen presence, offers no masculinity. There's a sub-plot involving racial tension between the white townsfolk and the native fishermen, but nothing is made of it other than some low-key tension. This was filmed in Manitoba, Canada, but there's little to distinguish the scenery from any dime-a-dozen monster flick. They had the chance to show off the locales but they blew it.
So, does this film have any saving graces? A few. The special effects are decent, for once. There are some excellent CGI animations at the climax, when we get to see the beast in all its glory, and before then some nicely animated killer tentacles. I wasn't expecting any bloodshed – this IS a TV movie, after all – but there's a cool bit where a victim's arm pops off and we see some squirting blood from the de-tentacled monster. The main problem is that this never, ever, even once goes anything near 'scary'. It's just routine, seen-it-all-before, and eminently forgettable.
To make a buck or two. I can see no other reason for this movie. It's a completely unoriginal, seen-it-all before offering. You know the story by heart: there's a series of unexplained deaths at sea. A scientist turns up to investigate, enlisting a pretty policewoman to help. More people die. The locals are reluctant to stop fishing and there's plenty of antagonism. Eventually, evidence reveals the existence of the creature and the locals go out to sea to kill it. Blah blah blah...
It's pure hokum, not helped by the efforts of a less-than-impressive cast. I liked the Chilean actress playing the heroine, Alexandra Castillo, but that's about it. James Van Der Beek, from TV's DAWSON'S CREEK, is the hero, but he still feels like an out-of-his-league teenager to be honest: he commands no screen presence, offers no masculinity. There's a sub-plot involving racial tension between the white townsfolk and the native fishermen, but nothing is made of it other than some low-key tension. This was filmed in Manitoba, Canada, but there's little to distinguish the scenery from any dime-a-dozen monster flick. They had the chance to show off the locales but they blew it.
So, does this film have any saving graces? A few. The special effects are decent, for once. There are some excellent CGI animations at the climax, when we get to see the beast in all its glory, and before then some nicely animated killer tentacles. I wasn't expecting any bloodshed – this IS a TV movie, after all – but there's a cool bit where a victim's arm pops off and we see some squirting blood from the de-tentacled monster. The main problem is that this never, ever, even once goes anything near 'scary'. It's just routine, seen-it-all-before, and eminently forgettable.