"Chupacabra: Dark Seas" is the type of movie reviewers hate to review. No, it's not that the title is a pain to spell out. It's that no thesaurus has enough adjectives for the word "awful" in it to cover an entire review.
This is more pitiful dredge from the Sci-Fi Channel, plain and simple, and there's hardly an explanation for its existence.
Doctor Pena (Giancarlo Esposito), a crypto zoologist specializing in the study of Chupacabras, has finally nailed a specimen. After capturing it and losing some men in the process, he only has one more step: Get it into the United States for study. Storing it on a cruise ship, two members of the loading crew open up the box containing the bloodthirsty beast, curious to see what's inside. What they have let loose is an almost indestructible creature that threatens everyone aboard.
Let's get it out of the way early. This movie is filled with blood. Buckets of it. In fact, they probably spent more on blood then they did on any of the actors. People get their faces ripped off, blood splatters onto walls repeatedly, and one pour soul lies on the cold metal floor with the other half of his body someplace else. I have to wonder what exactly this creature eats since the majority of the necessary bodily fluid ends up as decoration.
Director John Shepphird has absolutely no experience in this genre, though that probably wouldn't have made a difference. The only recognizable face is long-time actor John Rhys-Davis who played Gimli in the "Lord of the Rings." Either his entire payoff from those films is gone or he had some favors to pay back. There's little reason for him to be here otherwise.
The rest of the cast is simply awful, putting in ludicrous performances on every level. David Millbern plays an onboard thief and he should never be allowed to act again, ever, anywhere, for the rest of time. The US Navy comes onboard a bit into the film, complete with painted bicycle helmets (seriously). Either every one of them failed basic training miserably, or they simply like to fire their guns at blank walls and with civilians in the line of fire.
Logic is at a bare minimum. Most obviously, if you were going out to capture a mythical creature and have a chance, wouldn't you have a plan to get it back to the states? And why a cruise ship? And how does he know so much about this creature if it technically doesn't exist?
Though Rhys-Davis' character is supposedly a bright heroic captain (told to the audience in a brief and totally illogical moment of character development), he makes really stupid decisions. Why take everyone out of his or her safe cabins (where no one has been killed yet) to evacuate? Putting them all out as food is NOT going to win you any respect points.
Article comments
1 - Nick Jones
The Sci-Fi Channel keeps producing crap like this, while they canceled the great Farscape.
I saw one of their movies this past summer, about a giant snake that was released from a pocket deep under the Antarctic surface. It was godawful, and Dean Cain's career must be on the skids if he needed the paycheck for this film.
2 - DrPat
LOL! Great review of a bad movie! If it wasn't on TV, people would sue the theaters for false advertising.
Sadly, there will be some sales of the DVD/video release, though, you just know it.
3 - Matt Paprocki
Hey Nick,
That one you mentioned was Boa. It was part of a quintology of giant snake movies which included Python, Python II, and then finally Boa. Then Sci-fi got the idea to merge the two in Boa vs. Python. Yes, I'm a nerd to know this.
In all honesty, Boa wasn't half as bad as most of the recent stuff like Gargoyles. Python was a great bad movie (Jenny McCarthy gets her head taken off, that automatically makes it worth watching) but II was terrible. Oddly, Dean Cain is in a bunch of these movies, including the so-so Dragon Fighter (great finale).
4 - Dave Nalle
So does the Sci Fi Channel not know that a Boa IS a Python?
You've got to wonder how they can perpetuate so much crap like this,, yet still do excellent stuff like Stargate SG=1.
The high point of the 20 minutes of this movie I was able to sit through was seeing how much weigh John Rhys-Davies had lost.
Dave
5 - Anna
Wonderful review! Thanks for the warning.
6 - DrPat
Dave - a boa is a python!?! As a long-time owner of both, as pets, I know better. A python may be a member of the same genus, boidae, as the boa, but they are not the same species.
More truthful to say a Chihuahua is a St. Bernard, or a Pinto is a Percheron.
7 - Chris Hogan
The Chupacabra, real or mythical, has been described at length, both physically and behaviorily. To see such total lack of resemblance to the "creature" was like seeing Mickey Mouse played by a lion.
8 - Matt Paprocki
Hey Chris, seems like you know a bit about the creature. This was the first I had heard of it. Are there any decent movies featuring it? I seen a few on Amazon when I was looking for the items in the post.
9 - JubJub
Matt, the reasons you cite for disliking "Chupacabra" so much are the same reasons people like me love this genre. There is NO thinking involved. I loved it. I also love seeing otherwise respectable actors hamming it up. One only has to remember the classic "Thing With Two Heads", starring Ray Milland and Rosie Grier, where Milland's head is transplanted onto Grier's body. A rampage ensues. And the dynamo of popular culture rambles on down the road!
10 - Emigre Mic
Do Chupaca® bras have fewer or more cups?