In the wild and wonderful world of ‘B’ horror and Science Fiction films which make superb Saturday Matinee material and late-night television viewing in those pre-internet days. Those heady times of watching The Deadly Mantis (1957), Gorgo (1961), and The Giant Behemoth (1959), then talking it up with one’s school chums. Now some of these maligned pictures are making a comeback in Blu-ray special editions and restored versions. Will today’s B horror films like The Loch Ness Horror (2023) get the same treatment?
Cruising in looking like a hybrid between Alien (1979), The Thing (1982) and Jurassic Park (1993) one finds this Tyler-James’s written and directed monster film. Good-natured fun it is complete with CGI effects, female cleavage in tight shirts, practical blood, and a silly plot. In other words, it’s not a deep film but, who cares it is simply a fun if not clunky film. Chastising it for using plot devices from bigger budget films is not good as that is a stable of ‘B’ horror films. One must not forget that the now revered Norman J Warren did that plenty in his now-classic Inseminoid (1981).
The Loch Ness Horror (2023) opens in the ocean’s deep depths a submarine searches for a creature only known through legends. When reports surface that the sub has gone missing, a group of adventurers must band together to rescue those lost at sea. The team discovers they are not on a rescue mission but a mission of discovery to meet the legendary Loch Ness Monster.
The rescuers get introductions if cardboard introductions, from the misfit, the lantern-jawed leading man with romantic inclinations, the seductive Doctor, and the safety specialist. Oddly when they speak of their occupations, they are just saying lines, fluttering eyes, and dressing provocatively hence these are not characterisations although some work better than anything Leonardo DiCaprio could conjure up.
Then it’s GGI monster mayhem of tracking shots through corridors, putting people in shark cages, creatures erupting from bodies that skitter about decks and monsters that gulp down people all in the name of science and subterfuge. Watching this film, I thought back to the material from the 1950s and early ’60s that I enjoyed in a younger version of myself, and I concluded that this film is doing exactly what those films did. Used the same style of story, the same characters, and the effects of the day to tell something totally fun for today’s ‘sophisticated’ audience. The people that analyse the quality of kills in staging in slasher and monster films which I say well enjoy since that’s the main object of these over-the-top title monsters.
The Loch Ness Horror (2023) from the poster, like Hammer Studios’ not filmed version simply called Nessie and trailer film will find its fans. The characters played by ‘Jobbing’ actors and models just say words, mumble, look troubled in profile, smile, look seductive in places, yell, hold guns laugh at losing contact with an object using sonar. If you like CGI monsters in the rain stormy eternal nights, then this is your moment. It’s not a profound story yet that is what it is supposed to be unlike many of the 50’s and 60’s films that took on real problems and solutions and issued warnings. Popcorn out for his one, cuddle close because it’s rough computer-generated seas ahead.
THE LOCH NESS HORROR is out now on VOD and DVD from Uncork’d Entertainment
