When Beyond Loch Ness was first broadcast on Sci Fi Channel on January 5, 2008, I didn’t get a chance to watch it. Tonight, from 7-9 PM Eastern, I viewed the film. It was my first chance to see this one. But then, I had to. After all, I am a cryptozoologist.

The body count was ten people, one coyote, and several so-called “Nessies.” The experience was your typical cable B-movie sci-fi fare. The plot wasn’t too bad for a revenge film, the acting was first rate, and the special effects were mostly good.

The creatures (a “60-foot plesiosaur mother” and her offspring, with four feet, not flippers) can be seen rather clearly, even in this trailer:

Loch Ness Terror became Beyond Loch Ness when the title revision staff decided that Lake Superior was “beyond” the lake in Scotland. Filmed in Vancouver, British Columbia, in reality, the setting was suppose to be Pike Island and Ashburn, on Lake Superior.

Looking at the movie “beyond” the logic of that underwater passage from Loch Ness to a lake in the USA, I enjoyed it on a different level. It got high marks for the intelligence of the cryptozoologist. I am fascinated by how characters can stroll into films nowadays and declare themselves, “I’m a cryptozoologist,” over and over again. It must be a true sign that the field has reached a level of mainstream popular cultural recognition.

I smiled my way through this one because every time someone seemed bound to try to shake our lead star’s (“James Murphy” played by Brian Krause) pursuit or theories, he merely said things like, “I’m a cryptozoologist, remember?”

In his bush hat and long coat, Beyond Loch Ness’s “cryptozoologist” – with his global knowledge of dinosaurs and other cryptids, firearms and sonar – served us all well. Good job, Paul Ziller!

Beyond Loch Ness is a fun ninety minutes of escapism, especially for the cryptozoologically-minded.

BTW, next up from Paul Ziller, the director of Beyond Loch Ness, is Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon (2008).

Here’s the plot of Yeti:

After their plane crashes into uncharted territory in the snowy Himalayan Mountains, the surviving members of a college football team led by quarterback Peyton Marino set out to find help in a freezing cold blizzard. As days pass with no rescue in sight, food and morale run low and some of the survivors, including team manager Sarah (Carly Pope) battle their consciences as they make the heartrending decision that in order to survive, they must use the dead bodies of their teammates as a food source. But their biggest danger is lurking nearby; a hungry beast that stalks them with an insatiable bloodlust. The Yeti.

Hot on a distress call, mountain rangers Sheppard (Peter DeLuise) and Fury (Ona Grauer) scale the treacherous mountain side to locate the survivors before they succumb to the elements or become the latest victims of the ancient creature. Arriving at the base camp they find those that remain and learn that Sarah has been taken away by the snow beast.

With only a few hours of daylight left in the day, the group struggle along the rocky cliffs in a desperate search to find Sarah. Coming face to face with the Yeti, they battle it out in hopes of making it to a helicopter rendezvous that will save them from this snowy hell. But with the Yeti fiercely killing them one by one, can they make it to the mountain top in time to escape?