| Screenplay: | J. B. White |
| Director: | Jeff Bleckner |
| Starring: |
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| Music: | Don Davis |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Executive Producer: | Peter Benchley Dan Wigutow |
| Producer: | Tana Nugent Jamieson |
| Location: | Patonga, New South Wales, Australia Sydney |
| Cinematography: | Geoff Burton |
| Editor: | Tod Feuerman |
| Runtime: | 176 minutes |
| Company: | MCA Television Entertainment Dan Wigutow Productions Michael R. Joyce Productions |
| Budget: | $12,000,000[1] |
| Network: | NBC |
The Beast is a 1996 television movie starring William Petersen, Karen Sillas and Charles Martin Smith. Aired in two parts as a miniseries, the movie is based on the 1991 novel Beast by Jaws author Peter Benchley. The film is about a giant squid that attacks and kills several people when its food supply becomes scarce and its offspring is killed.
It was filmed primarily in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
The film begins with Howard Griffin and Elizabeth Griffin having a romantic night out on a yacht near the Pacific Northwest resort community, Graves' Point. After a freak occurrence causes the yacht to sink, the two are forced to head for shore in a lifeboat, only to be attacked and eaten by an unseen creature hours later. The next day, local fisherman Whip Dalton (William Petersen) finds the empty lifeboat and discovers a large claw stuck into the boat. Whip Dalton sends the claw to a university to be analyzed and it ends up in the hands of marine biologist Dr. Herbert Talley (Ronald Guttman), alongside assistant Christopher Lane; given pair of who comes to Grave's Point claiming it is from the tentacle of a giant squid. The island harbor master Schuyler Graves (Charles Martin Smith) and assistant (Mr. Jamison) hire Lucas Coven (Larry Drake) to kill the squid after both Whip Dalton's initial advice to leave it alone and several more deaths caused by the squid. Lucas Coven succeeds in slaying a squid and the carcass is promptly sold by Graves to Sea Land Texas owner Osborne Manning (Denis Arndt). The unmanned sonar detects another, much larger squid which remains unnoticed by the islanders.
When Whip Dalton and Herbert Talley are not allowed to see the squid to examine it, Dr. Herbert Talley organizes a submersible expedition to explore the squid's habitat. After analyzing the carcass of the dead squid, the scientists determine it is just a 37feet, 2000lb baby of only three months. The information comes too late, however, and the adult squid, the baby's 66feet, 3000lb mother, attacks the submersible, killing everyone on board. Whip Dalton angrily blames Graves for the incident, having killed Mr. Jamison which also resulted in the death of Christopher Lane, Herbert Talley's assistant and boyfriend of Dana Dalton (Missy Crider), Whip's daughter. Graves then blackmails Lucas, threatening to shut Lucas down for illegal trap fishing unless he resumes the hunt for the adult squid. Dr. Talley explains to Whip that the giant squid is killing out of vengeance for the death of her offspring rather than hunger, and is now even more dangerous as a result.
Lucas Coven resumes the hunt along with Whip's friend, Mike Newstead, and another crew member named Scranton (David Field). After enduring stormy weather they decide to head back to shore and continue the hunt the next day. The Squid attacks the boat before they make it to shore, devouring Scranton and knocking a cargo net on Mike Newstead, injuring him. It then attacks Lucas Coven in the helm who fires a couple of shots with his gun at its tentacles. The squid then bites a hole in the hull. With water pouring in, it pulls the entire boat underwater, drowning Lucas. Whip, after learning that Mike Newsteaf went out to help Lucas Coven comes to the rescue and, finding Mike holding onto a buoy, pulls him out of the water and takes him to the hospital. After hearing the squid came ashore one night, Whip Dalton then agrees to go out and hunt the giant squid but only if he can use his boat and Graves goes with him. He is also accompanied by coast guard officer, Lt. Kathryn Marcus (Karen Sillas), Dr. Talley, and Manning.
They plan to snare the squid, reel it in and shoot it multiple times with darts full of cyanide. The plan succeeds and the squid appears dead. But when the ship's engine breaks down, Manning reveals that he filled the darts with tranquilizer instead of cyanide so he could take the squid alive back to Sea Land. Graves tried to escape on a lifeboat as Whip cuts the squid loose just as it awakes. The squid soon chases down and kills Graves. Afterword's, it resumes the attack on Whip's boat, killing Manning and then jumping on the boat. It then grabs Talley and eats him. A coast guard helicopter arrives in time to pick up Kathryn and Whip Dalton. As he boards the helicopter, Whip Dalton fends the squid off with an axe, chopping open several extra fuel drums and has Kathryn use a flare gun to set his boat on fire. The squid is unable to escape as an explosion blows up the squid's beak and lower body, killing it. The helicopter flies them back to the shore where they reunite with Dana Dalton.
This TV adaption based on Peter Benchley's novel of the same name is mostly faithful to the source material; but some changes were made for the sake of film locations and pacing. In the novel, the squid has much younger offspring which do not make an appearance until the end of the novel, and the titular squid is killed by a sperm whale, not by an explosion as in the movie. Many storylines and characters are added or changed in the TV adaptation. For one thing, the book took place in Bermuda while the movie took place in a Pacific North West community resort called Grave's Point. While still gigantic, the squid is smaller than portrayed in the book. While the movie has it at 66feet long, the book depicts the squid as being 100feet in length.