Very Cool!!!

Strong and Moving!

Excellent adaptation.

It's funny watching the elements come together in this complicated scam. On one hand, the set-up isn't quite as complex as it seems, but there's an easy sense of fun in every exchange.

THE BEAST was one of the big TV miniseries of 1996 and widely heralded as a follow up to JAWS. It's based on another Peter Benchley novel and is very similar in story and structure to the Spielberg classic, with the twist that now it's a giant squid terrorising a small coastal town. The TV movie feel means that this isn't particularly dangerous or frightening, but I found that there was enough interesting material to sustain the three-hour running time and it's pretty entertaining to boot.The film boasts a good mix of characters, half of whom will get inked or swallowed by the climax, and some nice character actors in the mix. William Petersen is the hero who nobody listens to and Charles Martin Smith the antagonist in a suit. Best of the bunch is DARKMAN's Larry Drake as the drunken fisherman who steals all his scenes. The '90s-era CGI effects have dated badly, but the life-size squid effects are pretty decent and overall this is solid enough, if no classic.

It's impossible not to compare this (or most water monster films) with "Jaws" (1975). Considering "The Beast" was produced about twenty years after the former, we start seeing the problems.First obvious problems are the special and the visual effects. "Jaws" went with animatronics, which caused so much trouble on pre- and production stages that the whole script had to be remade, turning "just another monster film" into an all-time classic thriller. In "The Beast", they tried to show the monster as much as they could, using both rubber animatronics and visual effects. Usually, it works fine enough, but there are times when things go bad, like at the very ending of the first episode (it's a two parts series), when the "beast" jumps out of water, for no reason, to hit a buoy. The stop-motion used for that scene looked really dated, like ED-209 on original "RoboCop" (1987).The second problem is the pace and the film run time. They could have cut a lot of drama out without hurting the story, reducing its run length of almost 3h and increasing its pace. There's even some romance, one so unnecessary that, after the beast is destroyed (yes, it's an American film, so it ends in a big explosion, but who couldn't have foreseen that), the film simply ends, without showing the surviving couple together or whatever.Although the plot is interesting and the effects are fine, the film drags a lot, making it a one shot experience. There are no thrills or anything that makes it worth watching again. This is another of those films not too bad that have to be avoided, but not good enough to be watched more than once.

Well intended but pretty boring – especially since it's nearly three hours long – monster movie about a small fisherman community named Grace Point that has a bit of a sea creature problem. It starts with the disappearance of a young couple out on a sailing trip and then it takes an awful long time (again, this movie is freaking three hours long!) before anything remotely significant happens. Thanks to the discovery of one miserable little claw, however, highly respected fisherman Whip Dalton can derive they're up against a 60ft tall squid. With his knowledge, this guy should have been the assistant of Steve Irwin. Maybe then he would still be alive today! Anyways, because of the so-called "trap-fishing" that became quite popular in Grace Point, there's hardly any fish left near the coastal town and the octopus' natural source of food is as good as extinct. This leaves the creature no choice but to go after the inhabitants of Grace Point instead. Naturally, and in good old-fashioned "Jaws" tradition, the arrival of the squid coincides with the annual town's festival and there are obviously a lot of people that want to make tons of money on the account of the exceptionally large sea monster. Of course, you can't really blame writer Peter Benchley for ripping off "Jaws", as he himself was also the creator of "Jaws". Since this is a three hour long movie (not sure if I emphasized that little detail already) there's also a whole lot of tedious, dreadful and irrelevant nonsense going on in this film. Multiple romantic sub plots, for example, involving the leading man's slow progress towards a first new relationship since the passing of his wife. Ironically enough, he eventually falls for a female coast guard member who isn't ready for a new lover in her life either. Whip Dalton's teenage daughter discovers the meaning of love for the first time in her life as well, and her story is actually hilarious if you're a cynical bastard who finds joy in the agony of others. Throughout the entire first half of the movie, this girl nags that she's stuck in a small fisherman town without cute boys, yet when she meets the oceanologist's young assistant and spends a few romantic days with him, he subsequently gets eaten by the squid. There, I just summarized altogether 60 minutes of running time for you. The second half of the film is dragging and dull, with overlong and unnecessary sequences and a sub plot that is directly stolen from "Orca – the Killer Whale" (another "Jaws" imitation) suggesting that the octopus is killing with a grudge. For you see, a couple of over-anxious hunters claimed they eliminated the monster, whereas they only killed a baby species. In the second half of the film, mommy returns with a vengeance. The make-up effects and squid models are quite good, especially the baby-squid corpse that floats around on the water surface throughout the entire second part. Decent acting performances and good casting decisions as well, with Charles Martin Smith ("The Untouchables") as the obnoxious bureaucrat mayor and Larry Drake ("Darkman", "Dr. Giggles", "Dark Night of the Scarecrow") as the sleazy, drunken and loud-mouthed troublemaker in town. "The Beast" certainly isn't a bad film, but I just wished I watched the short and simple version instead.

This movie really outshone "Jaws" in every department, except for hype. In retrospect, had this film been made first, during the early or mid 1970 decade, it would have gotten the respect it deserved. It had much better action, character, plot, and twists than "Jaws," which was a splendid movie in its own right. This movie is about a giant squid. There have been numerous giant squid movies that rate as bombs, but this one was interesting. The characters are all very credible and likable with one noticeable exception, but even in this case, the actor pulls out a remarkable performance to make him more believable. There is a combination of great casting, acting, and directing that make this enjoyable. There is plenty of excitement. And a lot of twists. Believe me, until the end, you will not predict anything that happens. It has no predictability. The characters are well defined. Much like "Jaws", it comes down to a crew assorted at the end. The end may be a bit "Hollywood", and run of the mill, but the rest of the movie makes it worthwhile.