Apparently Corin Nemec, AKA TV’s Parker Lewis, has made a few of these direct-to-video monster attack movies. I already reviewed Sand Shark, which was mediocre but featured the amusing non-talents of Brooke Hogan. This one features nobody you’ve heard of. But hey, it has a Beast eating people. So it’s got that going for it.
Sea Beast (2008)
Parker Lewis, 20 years later, still has a baby face and still can’t do gravitas. But he’s trying, for what little screen time he gets. I’ll give him that. Here he has long greasy hair and gets to smoke a cigar. As I mentioned, this is the second monster movie I’ve seen him in, but also the second ocean monster movie he’s been in that doesn’t appear anywhere in the ocean. Previously it was Sand Sharks, which stayed only under the sand. This one is Sea Beast, which only likes to turn invisible and jump out and kill people in the jungle. Seen Predator a couple times, huh, guys?
We start off with some terrible CGI boat effects, as there’s a boat in a storm. And Parker Lewis sees a dude washed overboard, or did he actually get eaten by an invisible monster? I’ll leave that question unanswered for added dramatic effect.
Then pretty quickly the Sea Beast materializes to eat the only black guy in the cast and his girlfriend, who are never mentioned again. Then the Sea Beast spends the rest of the movie eating people and spitting poisonous snot at them, that makes them hallucinate, and THEN he eats them. Meanwhile, Parker Lewis slowly puts the pieces to the puzzle of the missing sailor and all the toxic snot he keeps finding together. Seriously movie, it’s in the damn title. Do we really have to waste 30 minutes of running time solving a mystery that was spoiled two minutes into the movie? Yes Parker, you saw a monster. How come you’re not more suspicious that your black buddy recently disappeared?
The big twist here is that there are several Sea Beasts running around, eating generic cast members. There’s some attempts at humor but I didn’t laugh once, and the whole plot is pretty generic. In fact, I pretty much saw this movie last week when it was called Wyvern, only that one had better effects, better humor and a flying monster, which is at least a bit different. Both movies feature a lot of random dudes wandering into the woods with rifles who are eaten one at a time. You know what, plot is free, guys. Feel free to have some.
About halfway into the movie, characters start speculating on what the Sea Beast is. They think it’s some kind of angler fish. I’ll tell you what it’s not. It’s not some kind of mutant angler fish. Angler fish are fish in the ocean, and they have little glowing balls over their heads that lure food into their mouths. The Sea Beasts in this movie have claws, and four legs like a reptile, and have a couple ways of killing you, including teeth and long prehensile tongues that choke people. This isn’t really how long monster tongues work, by the way. They would just stick to you while the monster dines on you at his leisure. There’s also a hilariously bad scene where a baby Beast monster-tongues the dufus boyfriend, then the blond girl drops a rock on the tongue, and the monster, for some reason, is instantly yanked forward by its tongue, smashing his head on the rock. Once again, that’s not really how long tongues work. But why am I arguing logic with a movie called Sea Beast and the monster walks, eats and lays eggs on land? The movie is very predictable. It’s just a series of monster attacks. And we all know where it is going as Parker Lewis, his blonde girlfriend, and his blonde daughter and her dufus boyfriend must face an army of Sea Beasts, and they survive. Roll credits.
THE BOTTOME LINE
We’re in Syfy Channel Movie territory here. The whole thing takes place in bright daylight to make sure that nothing the least bit scary is going to happen. Also, it’s pitched at a frantic level of everybody shouting, so it never threatens to get funny either. The Sea Beasts kind of look like buck-toothed spirit dogs from Ghostbusters. The monsters are mostly made up of so-so CGI, but they’re not that interesting and never the least bit scary. Not funny, not scary, not interesting and not gross enough to hold your attention. So basically to enjoy this movie, either you’re an avowed Parker Lewis fan, even though he’s barely in this thing. Or you are really bored, and drunk or high or all three to enjoy this movie. Oh, and spoiler alert, that poster never comes close to happening in the movie.