FANTASTIC DINOSAURS: The Loch Ness Horror

[Welcome to the return of The Rambling of a Minnesota Geek's project to watch every and all movies from the trailer-compilation video Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies. My goal is to locate and view all the films that were trailed in the video, and review 'em as honestly as I can. I love me monster movies, and I love me dinosaur movies, and this allows me the opportunity to visit some classic oldies of the sci-fi/monster genre. There's gonna be some winners, and undoubtedly some clunkers, but that's part of the excitement, innit? Enjoy 'em, mateys!]

THE RAMBLINGS OF A MINNESOTA GEEK

proudly presents

In this Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies set, the one trailer that really pushed me into the territory of wanting to actively seek out and watch all of the movies included in this compilation, was The Loch Ness Horror. For some odd reason, the trailer left quite the impression for my four-year old self. The dark colors and the scary underwater cinematography of a Nessie mouth itching towards the camera, unmistakably ready to kill me! I was captivated by the trailer, someway, somehow, so finally finding a copy of the film - no mere easy task - was met with loads of exuberance. All excited like, I threw in The Loch Ness Horror on my television, and within minutes, I hated it, and within the first twenty minutes, I was already bored, and continued being so for the remainder of the movie.

It was that enormously sad moment when something you were so excited to see for a long while is finally screened and it turns out to be a giant festival of utter shit. This is The Loch Ness Horror.

Frankly, my attention span was all over the place, so I can't necessarily tell anyone a good premise of the movie, but based off what I could cobble together from the narrative and online sources, there's this Nessie egg that is important to this "Yankee" scientist (*) and Nessie wants it back, an airplane that crashed into the Loch in the '40's becomes of enormous importance to some soldiers in the '80's, a group of teenagers convene at the Loch for purposes unexplained (although there is a nice slideshow about the monster, so I assume it's some sort of, er, expedition to check the place out), some mad old man who kidnaps a gal, this gal being one of the most upright button-up proper gals in all of sci-fi/horror cinema, and there's a trillion actors with horrible accents spouting off nonsense that doesn't propel the plot. Basically, airplane is a big deal to some military guys; Yankee scientist and proper chick have a connection whilst searching for Nessie; Nessie terrorizes random folks (I'm unclear if this is the first time Nessie has done this or if it's a common thing, which I would think would attract more attention than the Loch does now) and wants her egg back, and, er, I think that's it. Stupid people talking and wasting screentime until the titular monster comes onscreen.

*Each time a character says "yank", take a shot. I guarantee you'll be drunk before the film reaches its halfway point.

Nessie seems to have forgotten its body under the neck.

The single greatest disappoint - worse than finding out a movie I was eagerly anticipating turned out to be a load of shit - is the titular monster itself, the Loch Ness Horror: Nessie. Composed of nothing more than a bumpy hump and a long head on a stick (view right), Nessie is nothing horrific or monstrous, except in the level of laziness that went into the animal. That said, the Nessie face seems to have a mouth that can partially move and, when it roars (which is actually a pretty cool sound, terrifying in its own right) breath can be seen leaving, a simple aesthetic that somehow impresses me. To put it simply, Nessie sucks. I sought out The Loch Ness Horror because I wanted to see Nessie in action, and instead, we're treated to ninety percent lame human talky stuff and limited, embarrassing shots of the monster. Ugh. At this point, I'm quite looking forward to what The Crater Lake Monster has to offer. It seems the special effects team took the extra mile to use stop motion to visualize the creature in its entirety.

The conclusion reminds me of Jaws 3 and Jaws: The Revenge, with unnecessary slow motion implemented at chaotic times to make everything seem grander and more intense than it actually is. Taking place in the Loch, deep in its trenches, lots of red blood and extreme close-ups convey a battle between man and monster that ends in an stock footage explosion! Except I wasn't entirely sure what the hell happened, so I had to, once again, consult the interwebs to explain everything. Either I needed to pay more attention (which I blame pretty much everything about the movie for making me lose interest every minute) or the flick did a piss poor job explainin' what the hell was going on. I give up. 

Cast of characters include Spencer, the aforementioned Yankee scientist, who is a bit of a douche and lacks proper conversational skills, Jack the old Scotts man who boasts the most irritating accent of all creation, pressing his 'rrrrr's' too hard making him an instant nuisance, and Kathleen, Jack's granddaughter, the uptight proper gal who schools Spencer in all things Scotland and niceties. All these characters are annoying and deserved a most gruesome death, especially the grandfather. Some other characters include a crazy old man who kidnaps Kathleen, a Scottish scientist who spouts off science-y stuff to basically say 'I Believe in Loch Nessie', and two all-important teens who decide to get their whoopie on but end up plesiosaur chow.

Loads of bad sci-fi/horror movies can get away with positive reviews because the watcher genuinely had a fun time watching the flick, whether it be because the movie is just so bad it's good, or the watcher really does enjoy himself bad creature features. Unfortunately, I can't regulate Loch Ness Horror as one of those 'gems' that are simply so bad they're worth watching. The movie doesn't quite reach that level. If it wasn't for the absolutely rubbish script - the clunky dialogue, the sexist remarks, the subplots upon subplots, the incoherency, the clunky dialogue - there just might have been a chance this movie could be recommended on sheer bad-but-fun levels. Instead, in the end, it's all just one, big, boring mess. Despite the obvious budgetary restrictions and severe lack of a complete Nessie or proper screentime, it was a pleasure watching the monster in action, and that's about all the positive I can get out of this experience. Long to the point that every minute is felt, performances by folks who would make Hayden Christensen cringe, and uninteresting to the point that I was only half paying attention to the actual movie and instead concerned myself with matters far more important, like securing a copy of 20 Million Miles to Earth, next on my list of creature features to sit through.

Really, properly sorry to say firmly: skip this one, not worth the effort to find a copy and watch it. Instead, resign yourself to replaying the trailer, as found in the Fantastic Dinosaurs of the Movies compilation, which is far more creepy, horrific, and interesting than a single second of the movie itself. Just...ugh.