Beast of the Bering Sea (2013)

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

RELEASED TO TV IN 2013 and directed by Don E. FauntLeRoy, "Bering Sea Beast" (aka "Beast of the Bering Sea") chronicles events on the Alaskan coast when gold dredgers inadvertently unleash bloodsucking sea creatures. When their father (Kevin Dobson) falls prey to the ravenous beasts, siblings Donna (Cassandra Scerbo) and Joe (Jonathan Lipnicki) unite with a stalwart seafarer (Brandon Beemer) and a dedicated marine biologist (Jacqueline Fleming) to kill or be killed by the monsters.This is a snappy, action-packed TV creature feature with great ocean/gold-dredging location photography. Scerbo stands out in the cast mainly because she looks great in tight pants, which is offset by her feisty, stubborn obnoxiousness. Lipnicki is duplicitous; Beemer is palpably noble; and Fleming is intelligent, celestial and compassionate. Sure, the CGI creatures are cartoony, a meshing of stingrays, vampire bats and frogs, but they're formidable opponents. Unfortunately, the first half is better than the second, which seems to fizzle out despite all the action.THE MOVIE RUNS 86 minutes and was shot in Slidell, Louisiana (but the mountains in the background show that some of it was shot in the Great Northwest). WRITER: Brook Durham.GRADE: B-

"Bering Sea Beast" is one of those monster movies, literally bad to the bone.The story here is about a family of treasure salvagers have taken on a new hired deckhand. When they accidentally set free an aquatic monstrosity that have now gotten the taste for human flesh. These creatures of local legend, sea vampires, surface and wreck havoc on the community.Actually the story here is straight forward and very easy to follow, albeit it is incredibly stupid and predictable.Worse yet, are the special effects. The creatures, these sea vampires, were hilarious to look at. They were so fake and so badly animated that you can't take them seriously for one second. Even the sound they were making was cliché. The concept idea for the creatures was initially nice and the creature design was alright, but it went terribly wrong with the horrible CGI effects.The acting itself by the people on the cast list was good enough, they just didn't have a proper script or something solid to work with.You know from the very moment you sit down to watch this movie that it is going to be one of those movies that the SyFy Channel are famous for.If you enjoy badly scripted monster movies with horrible CGI effects, then by all means, "Bering Sea Beast" should be right up your alley.

***Warning this review does contain a spoiler or two*** Compared to Sharknado, this movie is a real gem. It was one of those "It's so bad, it's good." For a low budget made for TV movie, the acting was pretty good. I didn't buy the main Drug Lord/Antagonist' bad guy persona. He was like a cross between Boss Hogg and Mr. Potter (from It's A Wonderful Life).Anyone who watches these Alaskan gold reality TV shows know that there no gold nuggets as big as those shown just laying on the bottom, ready to be snatched up. The creature had an undefined garbage bag look. Bad CGI. I was watching the characters hide under an excavator and you could plainly see the wire attached to the creature as it landed to attack. For a movie with so many people getting killed... NO Police whatsoever. At the beginning of the movie, the ships diver gets killed. The crew opts not to notify the police until after a land lease auction takes place (which seemed plausible). But afterward, we never see any police involvement. Kevin Dobson dies 'Alien Style' in the back of the family SUV. Lot's of blood. Hours later when the vehicle is driven again, no blood. And what happened to the father? Were they driving around with a corpse in the back? Again, no police involvement. And over a 2 - 3 night period there was a lot of firearm play at the Marina, yet no police or curious locals.I did love the MacGyver weapons used. Marijuana grow lights, PVC pipe, duct tape, batteries and UV light-bulbs made for decent weapons. Kudos to the Prop Dept. But to slam the SFX again, UV lights don't shoot like laser beams. Yes the movie lacked a lot, but hey... it IS a low budget film and they did a lot with the money allotted. Overall I found the movie rather fun to watch. And isn't that what it's all about?

A rather lame movie, but it does have bright spots and it is a long way from SyFy's worst. Most of the acting is decent, especially from Jonathan Lipnicki(such a cute child star he was) who gives an earnest performance and the attractive Cassie Scerbo. The scenery is nice too with some competent photography(with exceptions) and the ending has some exciting action. There is a lot wrong with Bering Sea Beast, the biggest problem being the special effects, atrocious is a good word. The sea vampires look more like garbage-bin-bags with teeth and bat-wings, and aside from how they look they are also without personality or menace, you actually cannot take them seriously. Their attacks are not suspenseful or tense in the slightest, more veering between unintentionally comical, and suffer from some sloppy and rushed editing. The music plays too much of a dirge in places and is very generic stuff complete with unconvincing and at times bizarre sound effects and mixing. Bering Sea Beast is very badly written, the dialogue just reeks of cheese apart from the odd moment of snappy banter, at the beginning there are some laughs but later on it is very grating, while the characters are stereotypical caricatures and nothing more. Especially the villain, who had a subplot that was clichéd and out of place, and the over-compensated way he was played was the chief exception to the "decent acting" plus-point earlier mentioned. The story ends on an exciting note but much of it was dull and far too ridiculous to be taken at face value, sense of terror, tension, fun, thrills, suspense and even logic are almost completely thrown out of the window. There is some fun scattered here and there but too much of it is tiresome and grating, overall while SyFy have done much worse Bering Sea Beast was rather lame. 3/10 Bethany Cox