A UK/China production about a team of cryptozoologists searching for an unknown animal living in a lake that has recently started attacking the workers of a pipeline construction site in the area.
I was going to file this under "Bad Movies" just because it's a creature feature but I just couldn't do it. The movie is better than the trailer, I mean a lot better. I made s series of assumptions within the first ten minutes of the movie and they were all wrong. For one thing, there wasn't an obnoxious comic relief or team of expendable college interns. You actually get characters with
character. Then there's the lake, the actual lake. You don't get a quarry, you don't get a pool, you don't get a green screen. You get a
gorgeous lake with
gorgeous geology. Oh the geology, don't get me started on the cave! But the obvious one was what I'll just call "Accent". If you know your creature movies, or just your Bad movies, you'll get what I mean.
Then of course there are the animals. They're wonderful. The bear in the opening makes me forgive every crappy killer bear movie that came before it and the lake creatures are just beautifully done. They have weight, they have mass, they interact with their environment but more importantly they
affect their environment. Nothing can kill a creature movie quite like a post-production pasted on beastie that's just "there".
And of course there's Dolph Lundgren, who, being freaking Dolph Lundgren, is awesome as the loopy hunter.
Rating: 5/5 (+2 Dolph, +1 Characters, +1 Creatures, +1 Locations)
Those who didn't appreciate this film don't appreciate anything.
Check it out on Netflix Streaming!
