Plot
In a small fishing village, panic and fear are spreading as
legend of a giant underwater beast grows. When a government scientist is sent to
investigate the murky waters, he soon uncovers a sea monster beyond anything he
could have ever imagined.
Review
The fifth instalment in the "Maneater" series
sees the murky depths of the sea become the focus for this monster flick and in
this case it's a giant squid that has been given the screen time. If you've seen
any of the other films in this sci-fi/horror series, you'll know immediately
that this is going to be a by-the-numbers monster flick which delivers mediocre
scares, splashes of gore, some CGI monster action and little in the way of
originality. I'd also like to state the fact that giant squids and octopi aren't as
over-used as sharks and crocodiles in horror films but there's been a steady
slate of them over the years with none of them doing anything remotely
worthwhile with the material, save for The Beast, a TV adaptation of
Peter Benchley's novel which runs like Jaws except with a giant squid. I
quite enjoyed The Beast but when it's the best that the "tentacle
sea monster" genre has to offer, it's a pretty shallow indication of how truly
awful the squids have been treat over the years. Could Eye of the Beast
do any better than it's underwhelming offspring?
Let's look at the check list. Monster - check. Small town / remote location -
check. Local authority figure to try and stop monster - check. The expert who
arrives to help out - check. Plenty of minor characters for the monster to eat - check. Washed up actor in
lead role - check. I laugh how they are called "Sci-Fi Channel Originals" when
all they do is slightly re-write the same script to accommodate a different
monster. It's the type of film you could quite easily watch with the sound off
and fill in the gaps. It's also the type of film you could skip right to the end
and see how the monster is dispatched, again filling in the blanks between
titles and end credits with around 90% accuracy. Such familiarity is the reason
why people like myself are drawn to these films. There's the hope that just one
of them will do something different with the formula but it always end in total
disappointment!
To say the film is about a giant squid, you'd be forgiven for thinking you may
have been duped. There's not a great deal of squid action and the best you get
to see until the finale is some rubbery-looking tentacles. It's only in the last
few minutes that you see the rather ropey CGI squid rear it's beak out of the
water. It's a complete sham to find out that the back of the DVD contains an
image of a squid with it's arms completely wrapped around a fishing boat,
dragging it into the water. At least the other Maneater films featured
reasonable amounts of their star monsters eating people - the squid here seems
too ashamed to become the centre of attention. It gets off to a promising enough
start with the squid snacking on two loved-up teenagers but then disappears for
ages. Usually these films pepper the talking with some kills here and there but
this doesn't even include them. Most of the cast are thinned out at the end of
the film when the fishermen set out in a couple of boats to destroy the squid.
James Van Der Beek is our token
washed up actor here. The former Dawson's Creek star plays the scientist
but I doubt anyone would mistake him for one. He's way out of his depth and
telling the grunting fisherman not to touch his equipment is about the highlight
of his expertise. This is also a film in which the characters looking for the
giant squid simply switch to Google Earth and see it from space. It's that type
of film. Alexandra Castillo fares a little better as the token love interest
(also doubling up as the token authority figure) but their romance seems forced,
pointless and a complete waste of time. Why do I need to see two people falling
in love when the film is about a freakin' giant squid killing people? On the
plus side, this must be one of the first Sci-Fi Channel monster flicks not to
include a human bad guy for our characters to fend off. My main moan about them
in the other films is that they take away the screen time from the monster. Well
there's no excuse for that here as there aren't any human bad guys! Yet they
still shaft the monster into the background. So what does fill the screen for
the majority of the running time? Not a lot it has to be said!
Verdict
There's something fishy around here and Eye of the
Beast certainly reeks of it. Slow, plodding and being overly dull is not a
good combination when the audience are only watching for some squid action. Peter Benchley's The Beast was a far superior
giant squid flick.
