The Beast (1996)

SPECIAL EXTENDED EDITION! Peter Benchley, the master of sea terror, returns with another tale of aquatic mayhem in this three hour uncut version. With almost 80 minutes of restored scenes previously edited from earlier release, this is the original version, nominated for two Prime Time Emmys. Stars William L. Petersen (CSI). Product Description

no closed captions , no subtitles , no excuse

if you are a deaf person don't bother buying this teriffic little television miniseries . likewise if you are hard of hearing or wish to read the dialogue and/or description of sounds depicted on screen . i highly anticipated this restoration of the complete mini-series as i'd read and quite enjoyed the book . the approx two hour film culled from this mini-series was a bit above mediocre if you'd read the book , but to go to the effort of fully restoring the complete and better total package (and not to have encoded either closed captions of subtitles) ought to be against the law . otherwise a fun film with a good cast with a pretty fair amount of effort put into it . what a blunder . August 11, 2008

Another Benchley Made for TV Flick...

This was a made for TV mini-series based on the Benchley book of the same name... The book was MUCH better but the movie is still "good junk"... Entertaining and just fun to watch... I liked it then when it first debuted and still like it now for fun... Glad it was finally released... July 25, 2008

Fun monster movie!

The Beast is a fun movie. It has a great monster movie story line and plenty of action. William Petersen is amazing as always and brings a great quality to the role of Whip Dalton. His performance is the shining star of the film. I waited a long time for the full, extended release to come out on DVD, but it was well worth the wait. July 16, 2008

Finally, a definitive release of the hit mini-series...

To be frank, I've been waiting years for 'The Beast' to be released in its entirety on DVD. We've seen condensed released before, yes. This. however, is nothing like the releases seen before. It releases the mini-series on two discs, Parts I and II appropriately, as it was initially aired. Some of the creature effects may be a touch cheesy at times (the tentacles whipping aimlessly across the Seafox comes to mind), but at other times it is horrifyingly convincing.

In my mind, the creature effects team did a staggering job bringing Architeuthis dux to terrifyingly convincing life. In particular, the juvenile A.dux was rendered with an obvious eye to biological realism. Perhaps the proportions are thrown into ranges we've never confirmed for this species, but with that in mind, we have no measure of the exact size for this species being that man is incapable of probing the ocean depths wholly. Steve Alten addresses this well in his novel "Primal Waters" when he deems man the master of all earth's domains but one - the deepest regions of the ocean, which remains as alien to us, in many ways, as the far reaches of space.

Also, for those unfamiliar with marine life, one shouldn't be too quick to denigrate the behavioral interpretation of A.dux in this mini-series. It hearkens well to Benchley's novel, which was based on the premise questioning "what if the giant squid were simply a much larger equivalent to the Humboldt squid," which as many who are familiar with the species know, are often thought to be more vicious than sharks when caught, cornered, or for that matter, hunting. The voracity of the Humboldt is what inspired this take on the Giant Squid, and is what led literary critics to originally deem the creature in the book as making "the shark in jaws look like a goldfish." The squid's intelligence, viciousness, and perhaps even vengefulness are rendered well in the mini-series, as one watches the billowing mantle soar across screen with the massive tentacles and whips snaking behind (again, immense credit to the creature effects team for making the animal so convincing). All together, the story is solid, the effects for a mid-90s mini-series are good, the creature (again) magnificent, and the acting excellent (with the GLARING exception of the soap-opera-like daughter of Whip Dalton and her peers). For fans of Benchley or creature films, I can't recommend this highly enough. July 10, 2008

Peter Benchley's The Beast

Wow, waited a long time for this one, and finally it is here. This is the complete unedited Mini-Series that was first broadcast on NBC. Time to get rid of the short VHS and previous DVD releases as this one is the real deal. If you bought the first DVD release I'm sure you found out it was severely edited, missing about 64 previous minutes from the original mini-series. Rejoice it is all restored here in a very nice package for a very good price. This is one of the classic rubber monster flicks of the late 1990's and is terrific fun to watch, just buy it. June 19, 2008

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