The Loch Ness Horror to Surface before Christmas

Weird monsters and animals – cryptids – are a universal feature of human society. West Virginia has Mothman, the Gobi Desert hides the Mongolian Death Worm, while the goat-sucking Chupacabra stalks parts of the Americas. However, by far one of the most famous cryptids is the Loch Ness Monster, which skulks the Great Glen loch of the same name in Scotland.

Of course, it’s all fake (probably).

Medusa

Humans have had an obsession with strange creatures since our earliest days – and so their presence in media was inevitable. Clash of The Titans (1981 and 2010) is a good recent example, starring Medusa, a character that can be traced back to 5BC, but Godzilla is arguably the most famous beast out there. The overgrown lizard debuted in 1954, becoming something of a mascot for Japan over the ensuing seventy years.

Video and casino games haven’t escaped the scaly touch of impossible things, either. The collection of online slots at Paddy Power Games includes a 5×4 game called Monsters Unchained. Like Clash of The Titans, this features mythological characters like The Minotaur and Medusa. Sony’s God of War franchise has the monopoly on ancient beasts on consoles but Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice and Hades aren’t afraid of anything fanciful either.

A Rubber Plesiosaur

Despite a history that goes back centuries, Nessie has always been more of a question mark than a reality. The Vox website blames the first King Kong movie in 1933 for a surge in the popularity of dinosaurs and monsters, a claim that makes sense considering the most famous photograph of Nessie, taken by Robert Wilson, appeared in 1934. This one was definitely a fake. It was a toy submarine with a dino head attached.

Still, does anybody really care? Given Nessie’s repeated appearances in both documentaries and films, the answer seems to be no. The Ted Dansen-starring Loch Ness (1996) featured a popular activity at the lake, namely, searching for the monster, while the painfully bad The Loch Ness Horror introduced the world to a rubber plesiosaur in 1981. A movie called The Loch Ness Monster is also due out in 2025.

The Meg

Let’s go back to The Loch Ness Horror. A movie of the same name will be released at the end of 2023 – missing Halloween by just a few days. Billed as a treat for fans of other big fish flicks, like The Meg, The Loch Ness Horror tells the story of a newly-escaped Nessie rampaging across the UK. In fact, the dinosaur has got as far as London in the film’s promotional material.

The Loch Ness Horror is unlikely to dethrone Godzilla as king of the monsters but the studio behind the film, Uncork’d Entertainment, at least promises “some superbly thrilling sequences”, in addition to impressive special effects. The story begins with a search for a missing submarine that goes awry, largely due to the presence of the 1,300-year-old creature (based on the earliest sighting, from the 6th century).

It’ll be out on November 7th 2023.