Something Beneath is set at ecological conference at a newly built out of the way resort, ecological crusader Father Douglas Middleton (Kevin Sorbo) is organising the event & has some guy named Eugene (Rob McLaughlin) as his keynote speaker. Unfortunately Eugene turns up dead before he gets to make his speech, the death is put down to an asthma attack by a worried resort manager who wants to keep any bad publicity to a minimum. Then soon after 'it' girl Mikaela Strovsky (Brittany Scoobie) turns up with her wrist's slashed, coincidence or are the two seemingly unrelated death's connected & just what is that black slime that seems to be oozing from everywhere? Father Middleton & resort events organiser Khali Spence (Natalie Brown) try to get to the bottom of the mystery...
This Canadian production is yet another Sci-Fi Channel original but this time instead of killer mutant snakes or ants or fish or dinosaurs or aliens we get some black slime monster, directed by David Winning I thought Something Beneath tried to do something a bit different with the 'Creature Feature' blueprint but comes off just as bad as any giant animal/insect/monster/alien/resurrected dinosaur film made by the Sci-Fi Channel you care to mention. Along with the standard clichéd 'Creature Feature' angle the script has an annoyingly simplistic pro-environmental message to it that has all the subtlety of a sledge hammer, we are told in no uncertain terms that the environment must be protected & big business is the real evil monster. Yeah, yeah, seen it & heard it all before in dozens of other much better films. Something Beneath also has one of the worst endings I have ever seen, our hero Father Middleton & the token female love interest Khali (I told you it was clichéd) are stuck in an abandoned silo with the huge slime monster at the bottom & Khali hanging off a broken bridge in mortal danger. So what happens, so what do the makers decide to do to round the film off from this point? That's right they have Khali hold her homemade necklace thing, say a few words in her native language as a prayer & the slime monster then just leaves her alone & goes away. The makers of Something Beneath have the huge slime monster defeated by a woman's faith & a few words. Lame. In fact it's one of the laziest, most random & moronic endings I've ever seen in a film & doesn't stay in keeping with the rest of the film anyway since there's not been any supernatural elements to that point. The pace is poor, there are a few plot-holes like why does it take hours for Deadmarsh to be affected by the hallucinations when earlier both Eugene & Mikaela had hallucinations almost immediately?
When you get this slime on you it gets into your bloodstream & produces hallucinations revolving around your worst fears that result in your death, the idea is quite good but nothing is done with it & people have very cheap looking hallucinations like seeing things in mirrors or being chased by a dog. Dull & lacking in imagination considering the possibilities were endless. There's a really bad moment at the start when a construction worker has a bulldozer heading towards him & instead of running or simply moving to the left or right he starts to stumble backwards to try & make the scene look more menacing & to try & make it look as if he is in danger but it ends up just looking ridiculous. I am not sure if the version I saw on telly was cut or not but there's no gore & there did seem to be various awkward edits & jumpy looking scenes. The CGI slime monster at the end doesn't look too bad but it isn't great or anything, just maybe slightly better than I expected.
Shot in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada this has the usual average production values most of these Sci-Fi Channel monster films do, to be honest you will have totally forgotten about it within five minutes of it finishing. Kevin Sorbo is as big a name actor as the makers could afford which says everything.
Something Beneath could have been something a little bit different with it's unusual monster but in the end it still feels exactly the same as dozens of other 'Creature Features' & doesn't try to distinguish itself that much. More generic, lazy, by-the-numbers 'Creature Feature' rubbish that is instantly forgettable.
This Canadian production is yet another Sci-Fi Channel original but this time instead of killer mutant snakes or ants or fish or dinosaurs or aliens we get some black slime monster, directed by David Winning I thought Something Beneath tried to do something a bit different with the 'Creature Feature' blueprint but comes off just as bad as any giant animal/insect/monster/alien/resurrected dinosaur film made by the Sci-Fi Channel you care to mention. Along with the standard clichéd 'Creature Feature' angle the script has an annoyingly simplistic pro-environmental message to it that has all the subtlety of a sledge hammer, we are told in no uncertain terms that the environment must be protected & big business is the real evil monster. Yeah, yeah, seen it & heard it all before in dozens of other much better films. Something Beneath also has one of the worst endings I have ever seen, our hero Father Middleton & the token female love interest Khali (I told you it was clichéd) are stuck in an abandoned silo with the huge slime monster at the bottom & Khali hanging off a broken bridge in mortal danger. So what happens, so what do the makers decide to do to round the film off from this point? That's right they have Khali hold her homemade necklace thing, say a few words in her native language as a prayer & the slime monster then just leaves her alone & goes away. The makers of Something Beneath have the huge slime monster defeated by a woman's faith & a few words. Lame. In fact it's one of the laziest, most random & moronic endings I've ever seen in a film & doesn't stay in keeping with the rest of the film anyway since there's not been any supernatural elements to that point. The pace is poor, there are a few plot-holes like why does it take hours for Deadmarsh to be affected by the hallucinations when earlier both Eugene & Mikaela had hallucinations almost immediately?
When you get this slime on you it gets into your bloodstream & produces hallucinations revolving around your worst fears that result in your death, the idea is quite good but nothing is done with it & people have very cheap looking hallucinations like seeing things in mirrors or being chased by a dog. Dull & lacking in imagination considering the possibilities were endless. There's a really bad moment at the start when a construction worker has a bulldozer heading towards him & instead of running or simply moving to the left or right he starts to stumble backwards to try & make the scene look more menacing & to try & make it look as if he is in danger but it ends up just looking ridiculous. I am not sure if the version I saw on telly was cut or not but there's no gore & there did seem to be various awkward edits & jumpy looking scenes. The CGI slime monster at the end doesn't look too bad but it isn't great or anything, just maybe slightly better than I expected.
Shot in Winnipeg, Manitoba in Canada this has the usual average production values most of these Sci-Fi Channel monster films do, to be honest you will have totally forgotten about it within five minutes of it finishing. Kevin Sorbo is as big a name actor as the makers could afford which says everything.
Something Beneath could have been something a little bit different with it's unusual monster but in the end it still feels exactly the same as dozens of other 'Creature Features' & doesn't try to distinguish itself that much. More generic, lazy, by-the-numbers 'Creature Feature' rubbish that is instantly forgettable.