Sea Beast (Review)

Sea Beast

aka Troglodyte

2009
Directed by Paul Ziller
Written by Wendy Czajkowsky & Neil Elman

When Sea Beast first showed up in the listings on SciFi Channel, no one had any idea what the movie was. Internet searches turned up nothing, SciFi.com had no info about the film at all, people were confused, and many wrote it off as a generic sea monster film that would just be terrible. It wasn’t until a week or two before it aired that commercials popped up and people realized Sea Beast was really a film called Troglodyte that had gotten some good buzz. What looked to be a less than stellar no-name film turned out to be a very entertaining entry into the SciFi Channel movie world. Yes, an entertaining SciFi Channel film. They do happen, people.

I was wondering why some of the sequences reminded me of Snakehead Terror, but then I realized it was because Paul Ziller directed both. Heck, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was filmed on the same spot. Snakehead Terror was pretty passable (and only looked bad when compared to Frankenfish), and Paul Ziller has also given us Beyond Loch Ness, which also gets good marks as a SciFi Channel film. I haven’t seen Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon or Ba’al or Polar Storm, so I can’t comment on if Ziller delivers all the time.

One thing that makes Sea Beast/Troglodyte so entertaining is Corin Nemec, who is becoming a regular starrer on the SciFi Channel network. S.S. Doomtrooper, Mansquito, and Raging Sharks are all previous entries from him. When Corin Nemec is on, he’s pretty darn good, and his fishing captain character Will is pretty likable. Just don’t call him Corky!

Will (Corin Nemec) – Fishing boat captain and father looking to make a better life for his daughter. Barely scraping by, and deep sea fish monsters don’t help much! Corin Nemec is best known for starring in the Parker Lewis Can’t Lose TV series, and was seen on TarsTarkas.NET before with Raging Sharks.
Arden (Camille Sullivan) – Ecologist who helps track the origin of the new menace attacking this sleepy fishing village. Turns out to be pretty handy in sticky situations, and a love interest for Will.
Carly (Miriam McDonald) – Will’s daughter, who luckily isn’t named iCarly. Miriam McDonald is a Degrassi alumni, for those of you into terrible Canadian programming.
Danny (Daniel Wisler) – One of Will’s crew, and also dating Will’s daughter Carly. Danny keeps her safe on the island while slowly being poisoned by a hand bite. Things get even worse for Danny just when things look their brightest.
The Creature (CGI) – The Creature is never given a formal name. The closest we get are that it is related to Angler Fish aka Sea Devils, but neither of those are the titles of the film, Sea Beast or Troglodyte. As Troglodyte is a better name for a caveman movie and Sea Beast is never mentioned and too generic, we’re just going to call him the Creature. The Creature can walk on land, has babies it takes care off, has a prehensile tongue that is at least 25 feet long and strong as a bodybuilder, can camouflage itself, and can leap thirty feet into the air at a time from tree to tree.
Creature Babies (CGI) – Creature Babies, we make our dreams come true, Creature Babies, we’ll do the same for you! By eating you!


Continue reading