Have Cheetah,Will View #445 – “Behemoth” (2011)

Its 10:15 pm
dark/humid/hot

After I posted my interview with Jason Bourque a couple of days ago,the cheetah and I got an itch to check out a creature feature. I have been binging a show that we’ll be reviewing shortly but I seriously needed a break from it.
Lucky for us,the last Dollar Tree sale provided yet another awesome gem in 2011’s
“Behemoth” which I remember watching when it came out on the SyFy Channel’s “Most Dangerous Night on Television” series which saw original movies being released.
I haven’t seen it since then but when I picked up the DVD to look at,the memories of it came back and so for only a mere buck,I bought it.

I had a lot of fun with “Behemoth”. It is better then your typical SyFy Channel creature feature. The story was pretty original,the special effects better then you would expect and for the most part,the cast gave some really good performances,again,better then expected.

The idea of a tremendously huge monster living within a mountain that wakes up every few thousand years is not a bad one. I was thinking that if someone had used that as a pitch to a major studio,I wonder if anyone who have dared to take a chance on making it.
But because “Behemoth” is a low budget movie and didn’t have the budget for massive special effects,it made do with a lot of shaky camera work,some tenticles that actually looked great and in the movie’s most eerie scene,one of our heroes sees a huge eyeball looking at her through the mountainside!!

Director W.D. Hogan was given a pretty good cast to put through the paces in “Behemoth”. Ed Quinn is our leading man and he pretty much always delivers and is a experienced horror/having starred is “Starship Troopers 2”,”House of the Dead 2″(with the lovely Victoria Pratt) and the long running series “Eureka”. But as much as I like Quinn,I have to say his performance here was really flat and dare I say it,wooden. He just didn’t seem to have his usual high energy which would have helped “Behemoth”. But even the best artists have their down days because this is the only bad performance I have seen Quinn give.

Pascale Hutton is the leading lady and she gives a winning portrayal as Emily,the resident seismologist who keeps warning that the mountain’s eruption is going to make Mt. St. Helen’s look like a burp. But where as in most of these movies where the warnings are unheeded until its too late,Emily’s uncle is the town sheriff and he LISTENS to her!! See,I told you this was better then your average SyFy Channel effort. Hutton,who has shot to stardom starring in the Hallmark Channel series “When Calls the Heart”,really does a nice job as Emily.

The support cast is led by Ty Olsson who plays a heroic (but doomed) government who knows more then he is sharing and fan favorite William B. Davis who co-starred on “The X-Files” as Cigarette Smoking Man.  He plays Ed Quinn’s father who has discovered what is coming but no one takes him seriously. He has done a lot of SyFy Channel movies and knows what is expected of him,of course its nice seeing him play a sweet soul after playing such a evil one in “X-Files”.
I know you’re wondering why am I covering  a small TV movie from 9 years ago. Because quite honestly,I miss these types of nature amok/creature features. I loved watching these movies when SyFy was actually showing real sci-fiction and horror films. As I write this review,I checked SyFy’s Saturday night schedule…..they’re showing “John Wick” on 20 June and “Gone In 60 Seconds” on 27 June. The Most Dangerous Night has been declawed and I for one,miss it.

 

“Behemoth” has a run-time of 90 minutes and has no special features. This is a made-for-TV film and would be considered a PG  rating for slightly scary effects.

The cheetah and I gave “Behemoth” a thumb and a paw straight up.