                                ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, April 28, 1996                 TAG: 9604260093
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 2    EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Tom Shales

PETER BENCHLEY HAS HIS FORMULA DOWN PAT

A small coastal village is menaced by a marauding sea creature. Civic officials try to minimize the danger but eventually have to close the beaches. A local hero reluctantly sets out in his little boat with a few other brave souls to slay the monster and restore peace to the town.

Sound vaguely familiar? Think Peter Benchley, the author of ``Jaws,'' should sue whoever wrote it? Unfortunately, Peter Benchley is whoever wrote it. This time out it isn't a huge hungry shark but a huge hungry squid that brings terror and panic, and the story is called not ``Jaws'' but ``The Beast.''

Otherwise, not much has changed, except that ``The Beast'' has become not a major motion picture but a TV movie, albeit one that takes two nights and four hours of air time. ``Beast'' airs tonight and Monday at 9 on NBC, which can be temporarily redubbed the National Beastchasing Company.

Benchley, who apparently has few qualms about repeating himself, is also one of the executive producers of the miniseries, which was filmed in Australia and does have a smattering of chills and thrills. The obvious problem is that a squid just doesn't have the oomph or the sex appeal of a Great White Shark. One rarely reads about squids attacking swimmers, much less ships. The Discovery Channel has yet to have a Squid Week. Squids, like octopuses, are apparently standoffish and docile.

Thus J.B. White, who adapted Benchley's book for the screen, has to do some fancy footwork to explain why this particular squid is so grouchy and aggressive. In addition, the script is littered with predictabilities like: ``What was that?!,'' ``Get out of the water!,'' ``Looks like somebody took a chain saw to it!,'' and ``We've gotta stop this thing!'' It is also said, straight-faced, of two reckless young divers, ``Those kids are in way over their heads.''

Early in the movie an expendable couple out on their yacht are the first to get that sinking, squidding feeling. The boat goes under with a glub-glub-glub and soon the pair are bobbing in a dinghy. She: ``What was that?'' He: ``What was what?'' She: ``That bump ... that smell. ...'' And before long: ``Aaaaaagh!!!''

In addition to the nagging familiarity of it all, the film has two other large problems. First, the producers have decided to tell their whale of a tale with as little explicit violence as possible. That may be commendable in theory, but it radically diminishes the nightmarishness of the threat. We are told the squid has razor-sharp claws and a ghastly beak, but nobody gets much of a clawing or a beaking.

You might think graphic gore and violence were trimmed from the finished film, but spokesmen for both NBC and Universal, which produced it, say there was never much violence in the script to begin with. As a result, both beast and ``Beast'' come off as beakless and clawless and not very horrifying.

Meanwhile, the art of fake squidmaking apparently hasn't progressed much in 40 years. The squid in ``Beast'' doesn't look any more believable than the squid in Walt Disney's ``20,000 Leagues Under the Sea,'' made back in the mid-50s. In fact, the old squid was perhaps scarier.

The cast includes William Petersen as a man called Whip, who roughly corresponds to the Roy Scheider character in ``Jaws,'' Larry Drake as a gruff old salt named Lucas, who roughly corresponds to the Robert Shaw character in ``Jaws,'' and Charles Martin Smith as a money-mad developer who roughly corresponds to the Murray Hamilton (mayor) character in ``Jaws.'' Missy Crider is fresh and bright as Whip's teen-age daughter and Karen Sillas does what she can with the hackneyed role of a feminist Coast Guard officer.

By the time the ``Danger - Beach Closed'' signs go up, you may have such a case of deja vu that the few token departures from the ``Jaws'' formula will not impress or amuse you. Whip's advice on dealing with the squid is essentially ``Leave it alone and maybe it will go away'' - and pretty much the same can be said of the film.

LENGTH: Medium:   73 lines

by CNB