Beast Of The Bering Sea

In a small coastal town, one family has big ambitions. Their fishing business may be floundering but there's gold in dem der waters, they're sure of it. Unfortunately they need to get hold of it quickly if they're to fight off a sleazy and scurrilous rival bidder for the area. To achieve this, they need to take a few extra risks - but when dead bodies start bobbing up, it's clear that somebody has gone too far.

With a title one can only assume was chosen for the sake of alliteration - at no time of year is the Bering Sea warm enough to go sailing in the sort of outfits seen here - this film has all the hallmarks of the lower budget end of Syfy's range. Two things serve to redeem it. One is the unexpected chemistry between Cassie Scerbo and Jonathan Lipnicki as brother and sister Donna and Joe. The other is the monsters. Described as sea vampires, they're about three feet high with an appearance somewhere between bat and binbag, the most rubbish monster and also the cutest to reach our screens for some time. Believing anyone could be frightened of them requires some serious suspension of disbelief, but then, if you lack skill in that regard, what are you doing watching a Syfy film to begin with?

Thanks to her role in Sharknado, Scerbo now has a modicum of star power, which means this is getting more attention than most films of its ilk. She actually turns in a fair performance despite being hampered by a leaden script. It's the sort of Sunday afternoon ITV story in which one can imagine the A-Team coming to the rescue, but Donna and Joe haven't managed to find them, so rather than focusing on thwarting their human enemies, they make stopping the monsters their first priority. Fortunately there's a convenient scientist around to help, and as is often the way with these things, the two aims end up coinciding. In the meantime, there's a lot of squirting blood and an equal amount of looking away when shots become too difficult for the struggling director to compose.

A mediocre effort that still manages to be quite endearing, Bering Sea Beast is a passable piece of throwaway entertainment that really should have been accompanied by a soft toy line.