DAMN SEA VAMPIRES

(A.k.a. BERING SEA VAMPIRES; BEASTS OF THE BERING SEA)

Finely chiselled young Owen (Brandon Beemer) is hired to assist aging seaman Glenn (Kevin Dodson) on his rig, much to the initial chagrin of Glenn's finely chiselled young daughter Donna (Cassie Scerbo).

Old sea dog - and fellow assistant sailor - Jonas (Michael Papajohn) advises Owen that Donna likes to keep their dredging business in the family. Although the fact that she's not already thrown Owen off the boat by the time her finely chiselled younger brother Joe (Jonathan Lipnicki) turns up, prompts the latter to accuse her of wanting to get into the former's pants.

Such matters have to wait, however, as it's no time at all before all five of the above set sail on Glenn's boat, The Black Drum, to dredge a previously untapped patch of water for the promise of raw gold elements. Joe and Jonas dive into the sea in search of said treasures: Joe returns to the surface, advising that Jonas has been killed in what he believes to have been a shark attack.

Making it back safely to dry land, the survivors wrestle with their consciences - for about 20 seconds - before deciding that it would be in their finely chiselled best interests to hold off on alerting the authorities to Jonas' death until they've managed to plunder more gold from the area.

In the meantime, a nearby marine biologist - the finely chiselled young Megan (Jacqueline Fleming) - discovers Jonas' corpse washed up on the shore. Thanks to the 'Black Drum' logo on his swimsuit, she quickly finds his former pals and advises that she has his body at her lab. However, she informs them that he was not ravaged by a shark after all. Rather, he was killed by an "unknown predator" that she has been pursuing. A predator that sucks the body dry of blood (or, if you will, leaves the corpses "exsanguinated": one thing I noticed is that this film's script has a healthy amount of long words beginning with the letter 'e' ... perhaps writer Brook Durham could only afford one of volume of those A-Z encyclopaedia sets?).

Joe recognises the symptoms off Jonas' demise. He relays a myth he'd learned back in his youth about "damn sea vampires" - a story originating back to the 19th Century. He doesn't give the story much credence, but Megan is intrigued enough to start reading a few books about this local folklore.

Good job, really, as this hapless group of finely chiselled dickheads soon learn that the vampires are indeed real. For Donna and Joe, it's a tough lesson: their dad Glenn succumbs to one of the critters - a CGI hybrid of a flying eagle ray and the mid-formed doppelganger from Andrej Zulawski's POSSESSION - while out sailing with his pal.

When they discover their dead dad has a sea vampire gestating inside his stomach, the finely chiselled siblings at least have a sample to provide to Megan in the hope that she can learn enough about it to figure out a way to kill these fuckers. Meanwhile, after mourning their father's passing for all of five seconds, this witless pair set about trying to persuade their sailor mates - and their arch nemesis, Travis (Lawrence Turner) - that the legendary vampiric monsters do really exist. But no-one's buying their story.

And so, it's up to them, Owen and Megan to save the day...

DAMN SEA VAMPIRES! (the onscreen title is minus the exclamation mark) was made for the Sci-Fi channel and possesses all the usual traits of such a project. Cheap opening titles which serve as a warning to not expect anything remotely cinematic; cast members consisting of daytime soap actors (Scerbo) and people who were briefly famous several moons ago (Lipnicki - the kid from JERRY MAGUIRE, apparently); risible CGI effects; a screenplay whose only cleverness is that it employs its blatant by-the-numbers machinations to deliver action at a breakneck pace.

Twenty minutes in, when the first sea vampire shows its ugly mug, all but the most sullen of viewers are bound to titter inappropriately. But, do you know what? That's the half the fun. DAMN SEA VAMPIRES!, as cheap and seriously flawed in virtually every department as it is, is guiltily entertaining.

There are no surprises, the FX are really poor, and there is no consistency afforded to the characters (Joe is particularly badly written - a prankster one minute, the audience's moral guide the next). But the dialogue is so ripe, the finely chiselled cast so game, and the violent set-piece scenes so unabashedly cheesy, that DAMN SEA VAMPIRES! will almost certainly leave you in a good mood. Depending on what you spent to see it, of course...

I have to say though, it has the most ridiculously fast-moving closing titles I've ever seen in a film.

Sony's region 2 DVD presents the film uncut and in its original 1.85:1 ratio. The picture is 16x9 enhanced and is very good. If you've seen a Sony DVD in the last couple of years, you'll know pretty much what to expect: they don't do lousy transfers. This is no exception - colourful, sharp and detailed.

English 5.1 audio is equally impressive. Optional subtitles are provided in English, English for the Hard-of-Hearing, and Hindi. Sampling the first two, I can say that they were extremely well-written and easy to read at all times.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. From there, a static scene selection menu allows access to the film via 16 chapters.

There are no bonus features.

DAMN SEA VAMPIRES! is hokum through and through, but fun. It looks and sounds very good on Sony's otherwise barren DVD.

Review by Stuart Willis