a_baron This story begins on the banks of Loch Ness in 1976 when a 12 year old boy sees a research team, including his father, slaughtered by the Loch Ness Monster. Fast forward N years and there are strange goings on in an isolated town (town? hamlet!) on the shores of the Great Lakes. And guess who turns up? Yup, and now he is a cryptozoologist, like his Dad, or maybe a big game hunter, because Nessie has been laying eggs all over, quite an accomplishment without a mate!The first few minutes of this film indicate a stinker, but it is surprisingly good if you ignore the impossibilities of the plot. There is quite a lot of action, no bad guys, a tiny bit of romance, and some excellent special effects. Okay, "Jurassic Park" it ain't, and these things are never going to take over the world, but there are some hair-raising moments, a twist or two, and not a few casualties on the way to the final showdown.

JohnLeeT Highlighted by superb performances by Niall Matter and Brian Krause, this is a film depicting the classic struggle between civilized man and an aroused and vengeful nature. Stunning special effects bring to life nature as represented metaphorically by Loch Ness monsters who have made their way through chains of caverns from their original habitat to Lake Superior. The challenge to man's existence is profound, yet the monsters own existence is a natural phenomenon, the incursion of modern man a threat to them. The existential question is all too obvious and the choices made by man as he struggles to coexist with nature are well depicted here as a literal battle between species. At times, this film confronts the viewer with these issues quite powerfully and a thoughtful script uses excitement, dark humor, and pathos to force one to seriously consider whether man has a right to destroy that which he does not understand. Because of that blinding existential fear, a native species becomes simply a predator and, as in this film, we endeavor to find a way for accommodation rather than extermination. The anthropomorphism so typical to human reactions to animals is cleverly handled and there are some quite tense scenes. One should be warned that there is also some graphic violence and bloodshed but neither is gratuitous. Rarely do motion pictures with limited budgets successfully and intelligently bring the philosophical questions discussed here to the screen. That this film attempts to do so and does not avoid the complexities of the fundamental struggle of man vs. nature is a credit to a fine script and a gifted director.

sjanko I recently watched this film on the Sci/Fi Channel and it was quite bad. The thing that got me were the plesiosaurs themselves. For one, actual plesiosaurs did not have the feet depicted as the creatures in the film, they had flippers. And even though they likely came up on land, they were probably sluggish at best, like seals and sea lions. Also, the size of the head is 100% make-believe as the heads of all real plesiosaur fossils reveal a small head, yet adequate for catching fish. I understand it is a Sci/Fi Horror Film, but one has to apply some real scientific knowledge to really make the film work. And in the case of this movie, the producers failed to apply any.

panzerman47 This film is not good. I've seen worse. Fair is fair. But I certainly have seen better. The acting is quite wooden (although not utterly so) and the premises for the plot are, at best, very silly.Nevertheless, the characters act reasonably intelligently in several scenes, which is a first for movies of this kind and there are several shots of beautiful natural scenery.As for the special effects and the CGI... No. Bloody awful. I don't expect anything along the lines of Jurassic Park but surely they could have done just a little better?There are some scene inconsistencies that lowers the effect too.Still, I give it a 3 for fairly bearable characters, nice scenery and the occasional spasm of decent acting.If you don't have to pay for it, have lots of popcorn and soda and nothing better to do, I guess it might actually be enjoyable as a pass-time.