THE BEAST was one of the big TV miniseries of 1996 and widely heralded as a follow up to JAWS. It's based on another Peter Benchley novel and is very similar in story and structure to the Spielberg classic, with the twist that now it's a giant squid terrorising a small coastal town. The TV movie feel means that this isn't particularly dangerous or frightening, but I found that there was enough interesting material to sustain the three-hour running time and it's pretty entertaining to boot.
The film boasts a good mix of characters, half of whom will get inked or swallowed by the climax, and some nice character actors in the mix. William Petersen is the hero who nobody listens to and Charles Martin Smith the antagonist in a suit. Best of the bunch is DARKMAN's Larry Drake as the drunken fisherman who steals all his scenes. The '90s-era CGI effects have dated badly, but the life-size squid effects are pretty decent and overall this is solid enough, if no classic.
The film boasts a good mix of characters, half of whom will get inked or swallowed by the climax, and some nice character actors in the mix. William Petersen is the hero who nobody listens to and Charles Martin Smith the antagonist in a suit. Best of the bunch is DARKMAN's Larry Drake as the drunken fisherman who steals all his scenes. The '90s-era CGI effects have dated badly, but the life-size squid effects are pretty decent and overall this is solid enough, if no classic.