Film is Pwn

Not the least among my idiosyncrasies is that I am a total sucker for any number of monster hunter style shows on TV. I’m endlessly fascinated by History’s Mysteries on the History Channel, Destination Truth on the Sci-Fi Channel, and any number of Discovery Channel specials on Big Foot, Loch Ness, or other such phenomena. Why I find the topic so downright interesting, I don’t fully know. I honestly don’t think there’s an undiscovered creature swimming around in Loch Ness, but yet I find myself hypnotized by these shows. So it was with great interest I watched the strangle little film titled Incident at Loch Ness.

Incident at Loch Ness is a movie shot in the structure of a documentary – think the Blair Witch meets Jaws, which actually would be another great, Freddy vs. Jason style showdown, if you think about it; the sheer drama over whether either the Blair Witch or Jaws would ever make an appearance in the film would make for incredible drama.

Back on the subject of Incident at Loch Ness, it starts out with an ominous shot of a body floating in water before flashing back to a rather innocuous introduction. The idea is that a camera crew is filming acclaimed German director Werner Herzog (Grizzly Man, Rescue Dawn) for a TV profile while Herzog is preparing to film his next documentary titled “Enigma of Loch Ness.”  Herzog is working with producer Zak Penn, the man who legitimately worked on the screenplays for such Last Action Hero (*shudder*), Elektra, and Inspector Gadget.  (What a resume!)  The beginning is the least staged section of the movie, with Herzog having a number of friends famous and non-famous alike for dinner (actors Jeff Goldblum and Crispin Glover as well as magician/actor Ricky Jay are in attendance).

The concept is actually quite interesting, with director Herzog intending to make a authentic Loch Ness documentary about the difference between “truth and fact” relating why people have the need to believe in things like the Loch Ness Monster.  On the other hand producer Zak Penn is out to sensationize the expedition wherever possible, down to supplying custom jumpsuits for the entire crew, which Herzog refuses to wear.  Herzog is none too pleased when Penn brings along an actress/model to “play” the sonar operator, and Penn sneaks some shots in of the model in a bikini when Herzog is not looking. Before setting out on the loch in search of the infamous Loch Ness Monster, the sound engineer complains that the boat’s engine is too loud, so they replace the boat’s engine with a quieter one despite the captain’s protests. These and other ideas are funny in concept, but they really aren’t played as a humorous, so it’s really just something I found myself watching with waning interest as the movie went on.

Penn intentionally portrays himself as a shady, underhanded hack, but he’s not terribly convincing in no small part because he really IS a screenwriter, though the fact that he worked on the script of X-Men: The Last Stand makes a case that he isn’t a terribly good one. Herzog is a very credible lead, especially if you saw and enjoyed his later, actual documentary Grizzly Man, about a naturalist who loved to live in the woods with bears until being killed by one of the bears he loved. Still, much like Penn, Herzog is not an actor that fact is painfully obvious when he and Penn have staged arguments to advance the story. In fact, a quick trip to IMDB.com shows that just about every member of the cast is playing themselves. This really baffles me because – to the best of my knowledge – Incident At Loch Ness was never sold as a documentary, but rather a movie in the style of a documentary. What’s wrong with using professional actors for these roles? Did it really add anything to have an Academy Award winning sound engineer playing himself?

Strangely, the final half-hour of the film suddenly veers into the territory of a horror movie, and in doing so it lost what little credibility it had left. The truly sad part is, during the concluding “interview” segments, Zak Penn delivers the only truly hilarious line in the whole movie: “When I look back, and I hear people talk about what suffering, I say to myself, “Who suffered more than I did”? I mean, other than the people who died. I mean, obviously, they suffered more because, well, they’re dead. But, you could make the argument that they’re dead, so they’re not really dealing with it, whereas I live with the guilt, and I live with the sadness.”
I think this style of Loch Ness outing would have been a tremendous backdrop for a Christopher Guest comedy. For those who don’t know, Christopher Guest directed and co-starred in some VERY funny, half-scripted/half-improvised comedies like Best in Show, For Your Consideration, and A Mighty Wind. I can only imagine the gems we’d have gotten if Guest’s hilarious troop of actors had been on that boat (Guest’s films regularly feature the likes of Fred Willard, Catherine O’Hara, Eugene Levy, Harry Shearer, and others).

I really, really wanted to like Incident at Loch Ness, but I couldn’t.  I’d seen  It’s not funny enough to be a comedy, it’s not nearly scary enough to be horror, and it’s too clearly staged to be effective as a fake documentary. I was intrigued during the first hour, but the final half hour blows it entirely.  Grizzly Man is worth seeing (and somewhere down the line I’ll blog on that one) but as for Incident at Loch Ness: Skip it!