The Legendary Loch Ness Monster
Second only to Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster is probably one of the best-known Cryptids—legendary creatures that are believed to exist but lack proper scientific evidence, classification, or documentation. First described in 1933, the monster known affectionately by Cryptozoologists as Nessie—if it exists at all—is thought to be a surviving Plesiosaur, though colorful descriptions often include embellishments typical of dragons, sea serpents, and other monster fish. In fact, the very first eye-witness account by George Spicer in the Inverness Courier claims that the creature had a large body (4’ high, 25’ long) with a long, narrow neck thicker than an elephant’s trunk and that it lurched across the road in front of their car on land toward the loch 20 yards away crushing through the underbrush and carrying “an animal” in its mouth!
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- Loch Ness Monster Movies
- The Loch Ness Monster in Puppet Form
- Family-friendly Depictions of the Loch Ness Monster
- Nessie Meets the World of CGI
(A postage stamp from the Maldives (an island nation in the Indian Ocean) depicting The Loch Ness Monster, part of that country’s “Mysteries of the Universe” stamp series from 1992.)
Loch Ness Monster Movies
Whatever the provenance of the mythic beast, Hollywood has long been captivated, and the monster makers of Filmland have bent their collective talents to imagining what the beast might look like. Below is an arbitrary ranking of some of the more strikingly original examples.
Perhaps the 1st film to feature the monster was the 1934 English gem, The Secret of the Loch. Trick photography was used at the climax of the film, where an iguana performs the role of the giant monster.
(The “monster” revealed in The Secret of the Loch (1934).)
The Loch Ness Monster in Puppet Form
In 1964, the use of live lizards made to look huge was replaced by state-of-the-art puppets! In the 7 Faces of Dr. Lao (George Pal Productions), a miniaturized Loch Ness Monster that Lao keeps in a fishbowl grows to full size when exposed to air.
(The foam-fabricated puppet version of the Loch Ness Monster in the 7 Faces of Dr. Lao has a distinctly Asian aspect.)
Equally quaint, in 1981, a foam fabricated creature with healthy doses of slime provided the titular horror in The Loch Ness Horror, though he was only protecting his egg from the scientist who wants to hunt the creature for study and the military who are trying to keep their sunken Nazi plane hidden. Racism warning: do not watch if you’re a Scot.
(The scientist meets a toothy end in The Loch Ness Horror (1981) courtesy of Omni-Leasure International. All rights reserved.)
Family-friendly Depictions of the Loch Ness Monster
In the last 20 years, Nessie has appeared in more family-friendly films than horror. The mythological Celtic Kelpie, a supernatural waterhorse, turns out to be a plesiosaur who befriends Ted Danson in Loch Ness (1996). Nessie gets a mention in Disney-Pixar’s Monsters, INC. (2001) and the animated Scooby-Doo and the Loch Ness Monster (2004). Napoleon, in the indie hit Napoleon Dynamite (2004), gives a speech about the monster. The monster even makes an appearance in the Zak Penn scripted Werner Herzog “mockumentary” Incident at Loch Ness.
(The “real” Nessie from Zak Penn’s Incident at Loch Ness, about the making of the alleged Werner Herzog documentary Enigma of Loch Ness.)
(Nessie as a surviving Plesiosaurus © Copyright David Long and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.)
Nessie Meets the World of CGI
(Crusoe the Kelsie, from 2007’s Disney film The Water Horse. The Crusoe effects were a blend of practical effects and CGI all created by New Zealand’s WETA workshops & WETA Digital.)
But the most money spent on recreating Nessie for the film had to be 2007’s Disney film, The Water Horse. Set in 1942, a boy discovers an egg, which hatches into a real-life Kelsie. The boy befriends the mythical Celtic creature and returns him to Loch Ness. Once safe in the lake, the legend of the Loch Ness Monster begins…
The monster’s most recent appearance was the 2008 horror film on the Sy-Fi network Beyond Loch Ness (2008), with a CGI creature designed and supervised by Ryan Jensen.
(A still from the Sy-Fi original movie, Beyond Loch Ness--a CGI vision of the monster.)
It is amazing that, in some ways, the iguana from back in 1933 seemed more realistic!
Isn’t it time for a new Loch Ness Monster movie?