(Larry Buchanan, 1981)
I had high hopes for a low-budget Nessie horror shot on Lake Tahoe by celebrated “schlockmeister” Larry Buchanan. But while the film has its oddball moments, it’s largely pretty tedious, with an awful lot of talking about its bizarrely complex plot and too few moments of wonky puppet murder. It also suffers from being fairly bloodless, with too many deaths happening just off-screen. Frankly, it could have stood to be a fair bit sleazier all round.
That plot, then: A disgraced academic, Professor Pratt (Stuart Lancaster), has hired a couple of divers to find hard proof of Nessie’s existence in order to show the value of cryptozoology and restore his good name. But when they discover one of her eggs and haul it up to the surface, the creature goes on the rampage, desperate to get it back. So far, so good. But also, a different academic, Texan Spencer Dean (Barry Buchanan), has come to Loch Ness to take soundings in order to see if there’s anything down there – but when he stumbles upon evidence of a downed aircraft and unveils a cover-up dating back to the Second World War, implicating serving British cabinet ministers, he must convince a cantankerous recluse to reveal what he knows – while at the same time battling his feelings for the man’s granddaughter, Kathleen (Miki McKenzie). The army get involved. And then Kathleen is kidnapped by Prof. Pratt after stumbling upon his egg, and Spencer and the others must race to get her back.
It’s a lot. And we’re not even done. There’s also a group of horny teens on a camping trip, who hear rumours of a crazed old man living on an island. But we shouldn’t get too hung up on them, as they disappear from the film about halfway through without any real resolution.
This is all pretty awful, obviously. It could have been good fun if it was only the basic scientist-steals-egg plot, or that plus the teens, but there’s just far too much banging on about Nazi plots and too little watching people being attacked by a giant plesiosaur. When the attacks do happen, they’re good fun, in a cheesy ultra-low-budget sort of way: the monster’s a static prop, so the actors have to grip tight about its head and hold it fast to them while screaming as if they’re being bitten. I live for this stuff. If only the budget could have stretched to a few blood squibs here and there: with a bit more red gloop flying around, things could have been quite entertaining.
Apart from the obvious unsuitability of Northern California as a stand-in for Scotland, the actors are all terrible, and their attempts at Scottish accents even worse. The cantankerous professor, Jack Stuart (Doc Livingston), rolls his Rs like a lunatic, making Groundskeeper Willie looked restrained and naturalistic. He also wears a full filamore at all times, just in case you weren’t sure he was Scottish.
Still, I quite enjoy what the film reveals about American conceptions of what Scots were like in the early 80s. While we might think of Americans – and particularly Texans – as a bunch of religious crazies, all Church and Family Values, apparently they have – or had – the same conception of dour Scottish Presbyterians. Kathleen is a no-nonsense pious woman with no time for Spencer’s flimflam ways. My favourite exchange runs as follows. Kathleen: “Is it true, Mr Dean, that Americans go to the picture house more than once a month and spend a lot of time looking at pictures of naked women?” Spencer, utterly without expression: “Yes.” I’ve no idea whether that’s meant to be a joke on the part of the character, but the effect is baffling.
Other oddities abound. Spencer has got his sounding equipment from an American oil company, and he has a long exchange with his Scottish contact, George Sanderson (Sandy Kenyon), in which they debate the ethics of oil sponsorship. Ultimately, Spencer’s for it. And he defends it by analogy to the royal family: when he first heard about the British royals, he thought them an old-fashioned institution, but he came to learn they “employ a lot of people”. That’s all right, then.
There’s not much more to say about this one. Ultimately, too little happens, and there’s too much pointless exposition, to really get to grips with anything. The prop’s a joy, and it’s a shame it wasn’t used more, that the pace wasn’t enlivened by a few more deaths as Nessie seeks her egg. Those that do occur are decent fun: a man scrabbling for purchase at the ground as he’s pulled offscreen by the unseen creature; Prof. Pratt having his head slowly gummed as he beats ineffectually at the monster’s jaws. There’s also a nice scene where Nessie tracks Pratt through the woods, the prop appearing distant among the trees, peeping around trunks.
The ending is pleasingly insane, but it’s too little, too late. Ah, well.
Films In Scotland 