On a remote Mediterranean island, a drunken, Shakespeare-quoting treasure hunter named Frye (James Earl Jones) sets off an underwater explosion that awakens a long-dormant sea monster, to whom the natives must now sacrifice virgins or else become monster-lunch themselves. A premise like that could have made for a fun movie, but instead it made for this one.
Two young newlyweds, Neil (Martin Kove) and Sherri (Mary Louise Weller), spend their honeymoon on the island, where the groom's sister, Madeline (Deborah Shelton), has gone missing. Because who doesn't want to spend their honeymoon searching for a lost relative? Madeline turns up about ten minutes in, leaving a good 73 minutes of dull, uneventful scenes in which very little happens beyond gobs of stilted dialogue.
Top billing here goes to James Earl Jones and Jose Ferrer (as the village elder), seasoned professionals who knew they were slumming. Ferrer seems half-asleep while Jones spits out his lines in a way that suggests anger-management issues. And yet, they're the only ones with a shred of professionalism. The others have no acting skills and must have been cast for their pretty faces and supple bodies. This includes Lydia Cornell, future co-star of the sitcom "Too Close for Comfort." (She plays a convincing corpse, though.) And Martin Kove is a dead ringer for "Baywatch"-era David Hasselhoff.
Item: When Neil and Sherri arrive on the island, some kids throw a cat at them from atop a flight of stairs. It's their idea of a prank.
Item: In an underwater cave, Frye quotes Shakespeare with a snorkel in his mouth. The end result ain't exactly Kenneth Branagh.
Item: When Lydia Cornell's character goes skinny-dipping and sees some old men watching her, she gets mad and shouts, "I thought you Greeks only liked little boys!"
Item: The sea monster gets about five seconds of screen time; it resembles an underwater sockpuppet.
Item: Given the choppiness of the action scenes, I have to wonder if there's a longer cut of this film in which the monster appears more.
Item: The sound effects are ridiculously loud, to a point of drowning out the dialogue. In a beach scene, the gently lapping waves of the Mediterranean sound like rhinos humping in a marsh. Perhaps the Foley artist was hard of hearing?
Item: Near the end of the film, Madline gives Neil a passionate, lingering lip-kiss. They're supposed to be brother and sister.
Item: The film score is by some guy noodling around on a Moog.
Two young newlyweds, Neil (Martin Kove) and Sherri (Mary Louise Weller), spend their honeymoon on the island, where the groom's sister, Madeline (Deborah Shelton), has gone missing. Because who doesn't want to spend their honeymoon searching for a lost relative? Madeline turns up about ten minutes in, leaving a good 73 minutes of dull, uneventful scenes in which very little happens beyond gobs of stilted dialogue.
Top billing here goes to James Earl Jones and Jose Ferrer (as the village elder), seasoned professionals who knew they were slumming. Ferrer seems half-asleep while Jones spits out his lines in a way that suggests anger-management issues. And yet, they're the only ones with a shred of professionalism. The others have no acting skills and must have been cast for their pretty faces and supple bodies. This includes Lydia Cornell, future co-star of the sitcom "Too Close for Comfort." (She plays a convincing corpse, though.) And Martin Kove is a dead ringer for "Baywatch"-era David Hasselhoff.
Item: When Neil and Sherri arrive on the island, some kids throw a cat at them from atop a flight of stairs. It's their idea of a prank.
Item: In an underwater cave, Frye quotes Shakespeare with a snorkel in his mouth. The end result ain't exactly Kenneth Branagh.
Item: When Lydia Cornell's character goes skinny-dipping and sees some old men watching her, she gets mad and shouts, "I thought you Greeks only liked little boys!"
Item: The sea monster gets about five seconds of screen time; it resembles an underwater sockpuppet.
Item: Given the choppiness of the action scenes, I have to wonder if there's a longer cut of this film in which the monster appears more.
Item: The sound effects are ridiculously loud, to a point of drowning out the dialogue. In a beach scene, the gently lapping waves of the Mediterranean sound like rhinos humping in a marsh. Perhaps the Foley artist was hard of hearing?
Item: Near the end of the film, Madline gives Neil a passionate, lingering lip-kiss. They're supposed to be brother and sister.
Item: The film score is by some guy noodling around on a Moog.