Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

This movie ‘Sea Beast’ begins amidst a horrible storm created by some seriously questionable CGI, think along the lines of that movie ‘The Perfect Storm’, just real crappy looking, and similar to that movie we join a crew of fishermen working hard in this storm for their days catch. I astutely observe that one of these fishermen is my main man Brandon Jay McLaren which is good because on one hand it means that the brother is still working steady but it’s should also be interesting to see if he survives this movie. I’ve seen Mr. McLaren in a few of these monster / sci-fi type movies and he’s managed to actually make it through a couple of these movies which is almost landmark for a Black guy. Anyway as this opening sequence plays out, Will, the ship’s captain (Corin Nemec), thinks he sees a monster jump out of the rough waters of this storm and snatch up one of his crew. Then the opening credits roll and me being all astute again didn’t see Brandon Jay McLaren’s name listed in this long list of names in the opening credits. My Magic 8-Ball tells me ‘Outlook not so good’ for Brandon Jay McLaren making it through this movie.

So Captain Will keeps what he saw under wraps, convinced he was just tripping, and continues about his sorry existence as the worlds worst fisherman. Will has a daughter Carly (Miriam McDonald) who is dating Danny (Daniel Wisler), one of Will’s crewmen, on the sly. Apparently Will doesn’t want his girl doing the locals which may deter her from going to college. We could mention that Carly looks more like she should be entering a PhD program at this point in her life as opposed to just graduating high school, but we are not. Regardless... Carly, her man Danny, Danny’s best friend Drew (McLaren) and Drew’s sizzling hot girlfriend Erin (Christie Laing) are planning one of those quick remote getaways that young people in movies like this love to go on, one of those special places with no cell phone reception and filled with evil. Drew, unfortunately, has to work late on the docks, but assures everyone he will be there in the morning. We silently chuckle under our breath.

Okay… Drew is working hard this evening and hears a sound. He turns around and sees a somewhat opaque seven foot bug eyed monster standing on the dock about fifteen yards away. Now I’ve never experienced this particular scenario, as I’m sure you haven’t, but I’m thinking one of the things we are NOT going to do is walk towards this seven foot opaque bug eyed monster, armed with only a stick, with the notion of beating it with this stick. But then who knows what we would do? So much for Brandon Jay McLaren.

Drew’s hot girlfriend is really mad at him because he’s stood her up at this remote island, so she stands on the beach all pissed off while rocking her pink Ipod nano. Not to worry because soon she and Drew will be reunited in the afterlife. You see this monster, which we are informed by a pretty biologist named Arden (Camille Sullivan), seems to be a derivative of the Angler fish. And this monster has young ‘uns attached to its back and these creatures are eating everything and everybody. Now the situation is dire as Captain Will and his sidekick the Biology Girl must find his bothersome daughter and her boyfriend before the Monster gets them, and worst still, this monster has laid some eggs. Thousands of them in fact. Will they survive? My Magic 8-Ball tells me ‘Reply Hazy’.

We have another one of our Sci-Fi originals here and as Sci-Fi originals go this one isn’t so bad. though it is littered with some really stupid characters doing stupid things. If you see a monster in a tree, even a little monster, are you going to walk up to it and try to take a cell phone picture? I wouldn’t. Also, maybe slathering yourself with fish blood isn’t the best way to catch a monster I’m thinking. But knowing that a monster is out there and eating people and you see some dude slathered in fish blood, maybe you should stay away from this nut instead of walking up to him, scolding him for being slathered in fish blood because guess what? It happened to have been very effective bait. It was just the plan that was extremely suspect. Stupid scolding woman is dead now.

We like the inclusion of the beautiful biology girl, but she didn’t really serve any purpose in this movie. She wasn’t a love interest though Captain Will did look longingly at her ass that one time, she did give us some handy information but nobody listened to a damn thing she had to say, she didn’t kill any monsters, she didn’t save anybody but she did look nice running around in her skin tight scuba gear which she probably should’ve changed out of a while ago. While Miriam McDonald is hot and all, she could be the worst girlfriend in movie history. All she did to poor Danny is constantly screech at him and counter every single thing he said with shrill protestation. This girl badgered and belittled poor Danny constantly, slapping him for trying to get the poo and was constantly shrieking at him for being stupid and having a pulsating puss filled boil on his hand (cell phone picture… remember), that by the time she browbeat the poor guy into walking across the island to an abandoned ship which ‘may have a dead radio’ I think Danny was actively seeking out the seven foot bug eyed monster to put him out of his misery. Of course they are on this abandoned ship because the script required them to be there for a particular reason so we just rolled with it.

Mr. Sci-Fi Original Corin Nemec was good in this movie, though he did seem a bit too young to be the father of a twenty five year old woman. It’s like Corin and actor Jason London are having a personal battle to see who can do the most B-movies in the shortest amount of time. The Angler Fish monsters were well designed and well animated though some of the CGI was suspect, and director Paul Ziller keeps this thing moving forward and even when it does slow down the story was either just seconds removed or seconds away from somebody doing something really stupid to incur death, which just added to the overall humor of this piece.

‘Sea Beast’ ain’t high art but at times it was high comedy and it is a monster movie. Plus the monster was really mean, and we like us some monster movies with mean monsters.