Lake Monster Movies

Varan the Unbelievable

You know what's really unbelievable? That this B&W snore fest was made by Toho four years after Godzilla, and two years after Rodan. It's a real step backwards for the Japanese monster movie.

A village in a remote part of Japan worships a god named Varan, and forbids people to approach a certain mountain. Scientists from the outside arrive in the area, ridicule the villagers, approach the mountain, and then almost immediately get trampled by a giant lizard. The lizard then flies to Tokyo Bay (this scene was cut from the American version of the film, which actually reduced the level of unbelievableness) and hangs out while the humans have interminable conversations about how large a shell will have to be to pierce Varan's hide. Then it's discovered that Varan will eat a flare if he sees one, so they put a bomb on a flare and before you can say "Taco Bell," Varan is dead from a really bad case of gas.

The special effects aren't much of an improvement over Godzilla, let alone Rodan. There is no human interest in the story, unless discussions about artillery interest you greatly. Varan is a neat design, though he looks pretty skinny when he stands up. Maybe that's to sell us a bit more on the 400-ton lizard gliding around. But the movie fails to interest, and that's why Varan only appeared in Destroy All Monsters after this.

Crater Lake Monster, The

A meteorite lands in a remote lake. Six months later a plesiosaur appears and devours anyone on or near the lake, until it is subdued by a local sheriff using a bulldozer. This low budget film has good stop-motion animation by Jim Dansforth, but you will have to sit though a lot of filler featuring embarrassing rural stereotypes to get to it.

Beneath Loch Ness

Shot in California, this alleged thriller follows a group of scientists and documentary filmmakers (who never use cameras!) who are looking for the Loch Ness Monster. Or not. They seem pretty surprised when they find a monster in Loch Ness, and it's killing people. But maybe the monster in Loch Ness that is killing people isn't the Loch Ness Monster. Slow and poorly made, you probably won't care. The bottom line is that there's a plesiosaur and some sort of large mosasaur both living in the lake.

Incident at Loch Ness

Werner Herzog attemts to mount a serious expedition to Loch Ness while his Hollywood producer (Penn, playing himself) surrounds the unknowing director with actors trying to make things more interesting. Is the monster real, or not? When something attacks Herzog's boat what's true and what's not is up to the viewer.

A witty and fun mockumentary, and certainly the best movie ever made about Loch Ness.