Meadhall of the Comitatus

Looking through my movie selections for this year’s festivities, I noticed that most of the ones I’ve got on the list might *actually* be quality. Obviously something was lacking, so without delay I headed to the local video store where I locked eyes (well, locked eye might be more appropriate, given the box art) with “Beneath Loch Ness.” It was love at first sight, which was only confirmed when I looked at the back of the box and saw that it was directed by the special effects master that brought me both Dungeons and Dragons and Mortal Kombat: Annihilation! Not to mention that I was also promised “Big-screen thrills like Anaconda, Lake Placid, & Deep Blue Sea!” Who could say no to that?

Lost footage from Larry the Cable Guy's "Delta Farce." HOOOO-weeee!

Premise : 2/5

The movie starts off with people in diving suits on a darkened soundstage (oops! I mean “at the bottom of Loch Ness”) jabbering about some “flute” (I put it in quotes because they love saying flute, a lot) that supposedly leads to the ocean which supposedly has something to do with being an ancient breeding ground for the Loch Ness monster. Or something. An earthquake happens, and one of the people on the soundstage–sorry, underwater–gets tagged by a huge boulder that carries him down as he screams in a cartoony Scottish accent about how he needs a marker, gi’ me a marrrrrker!

Elsewhere, some bitchy rich guy and his personal assistant (or something) are talking about this tragedy that happened on their bankroll. They decide that exploiting the death of the guy from the first scene would be a great way to recoup the cost of their investment, so they’re going to make a TV show out of it for the “Expedition Channel.” So they place a call to some scruffy guy with a white cowboy hat out in the desert somewhere that they want him involved with this show since I guess he knew the cartoony Scotsman that died, or used to work with him, or something. Histories are only briefly alluded to, and honestly it’s not like any of it means anything anyway. Scruffy cowboy-hatted explorer dude (the character’s name is Case Howell–sounds like he should’ve gotten his own ’80s action detective cop show) takes the job for some reason or another and ends up flying in to Loch Ness.

Soon the movie heads squarely into “Jaws” territory, complete with the underwater POV stalking scene, the constable who refuses to keep people off the loch because it’s tourist season, and the red herring in the form of a much smaller dino that washes up on shore dead but that they assume is Nessie. What it forgets to steal from Jaws is excitement, tension, a body count, or any plausible sense of character or conversation at all. People just sort of walk around and do stuff that doesn’t seem to build from or towards anything, and likewise they just sort of talk at each other in such a way that it hardly seems they can be part of the same conversation. Only a few folks get killed by Nessie: one’s an annoying kid trying to hoax some tourists, and then a boat full of rednecks (oops! I mean “Scotsmen”) that fish with dynamite get their due. Then Case and a crazy guy in Braveheart makeup go down into the loch and face off against Nessie in a scene that is neither thrilling, surprising, nor anything but meandering until the movie finally just ends an hour and a half after it should’ve been buried at sea.

Case's ex-wife Elizabeth Borden (Case calls her "Lizzy" for short, get it?!) waits for the plot to catch up to her in a green-screen version of Scotland that would make Drew Carey cry.

Cast: 1/5

Yeah, so this movie’s supposed to be taking place in Scotland, right? Did somebody tell the casting department? 90% of the cast in this movie have American non-accents, but there is one British gal (Lysette Anthony) and Vernon Wells, an Aussie who was in The Road Warrior. Other than that, I think there’s a couple of extras who use their best Renaissance Fair Olde English/Irish/Scottish accent that sounds as fake as you’d expect from such a thing.

So our main cast? Yeah, they’re all American, too, but at least they’re supposed to be (except for the cartoony Scotsman who died at the beginning). Brian Wimmer is Case Howell, and if you ever want to know the definition of “phoning it in,” look no further than his role in this flick. He sleepwalks through the whole thing, pretty much. Kinda sad considering that he’s the main character and the rest of his crew (Lysa Apostle, David Andriole, and Chris Taaffe as Julie, Jake, and Ron, respectively–that’s right, no last names here!) are so much better than him at, well, everything. Which is not to say they’re good, of course, but they seem to actually try a few times, even if not very succesfully. Oh yeah, there’s also some blond dude with a ponytail that’s part of the crew, but he doesn’t get a name or any lines, so I think he’s just the actors’ dive instructor making sure they don’t hurt themselves. I’d give him an extra point for just trying not to be in the movie.

"Nessie may take muh life, but she'll ne'er take muh FREEEEEEDOMMM! Och! Aye! Haggis! Wee lassie!" -- What? That's not ALL Scottish people? Oops . . .

Technical: 1/5

Wow. Stunning ineptitude pervades every corner of this movie. I mentioned their underwater scenes before being clearly a darkened soundstage? If they didn’t spend 50% of the movie “underwater” like that, I could almost accept it, but it’s almost like the movie itself loves showing you how bad their effects team is. The movie, obviously, wasn’t even filmed in or near Loch Ness, although there are a few establishing shots of Scotland that, if they weren’t stock footage, could probably have been taken in half a day or less. Everything else is made in the U.S. of A, unless suddenly everyone in the UK decided to start driving on the wrong side of the road and accept the American dollar. The wealth of cheap CG effects for monsters and compositing in this movie kind of leaves me dumbfounded. Well, they say pictures speak louder than words, so here’s a few to go by:

Oh no! The bad CG killed Baby, the last dinosaur!

The blind, retarded loch ness monster skips another meal. Dammit!

"Now he's--Saul of the Mole Men, Saul of the Mole Men . . ."

Popcorn Factor: 1/5

Good lord, no. This movie can’t hold a candle to how interesting watching popcorn pop is. With a plot that can best be summed up as “hey guys did you ever hear about this Loch Ness thing? Supposedly they have a monster!” and dramatic tension to rival getting high and watching the Teletubbies, there’s nothing good to say about this movie. It doesn’t even have a cool monster, just this jakey looking CG turd log with fins and teeth that doesn’t really do anything. The ridiculous and inane dialogue might be good for a laugh or two, but you’ll quickly get numb to the stupidity and just wonder why you’re wasting your time. This doesn’t even look good enough to be a Sci-Fi channel original.