The Sea Serpent (1985)

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

"Hydra – The Sea Serpent" is fantastic and downright brilliant entertainment. That is to say; at least if you're into stupid, cheesy, trashy, tacky and totally incompetent euro-Exploitation material. From the creator of some really great and highly respected European horror landmarks, such as "Tombs of the Blind Dead" and "The Lorelei's Grasp", comes this must-be-seen-to-be-believed piece of 80's incompetence that you simply cannot bring yourself to hate. The film begins with a really cheesy sequence of a military airplane, code name "baby", in contact with the radio base, code name "mother", and receiving the order to drop a nuclear bomb, code name "baby's bottle", in the Atlantic Ocean. The explosion instantly causes a regular-sized sea serpent, as the only living thing in the entire ocean, to mutate into a giant and radioactive monster. And yes, all this even happen before the opening credits! Even after the exhilarating opening sequence, the monster doesn't waste any time and promptly devours half the crew of a Spanish fisherman's boat and a female American tourist who thought it was a brilliant idea to go swimming in an unlit and unguarded area whilst completely drunk. Of all stupid people I ever watched dying in horror films, she deserved it the most! Her traumatized friend teams up with banished fisherman Pedro, but obviously nobody believes in the existence of a massive sea creature and they call in the help of the eminent professor Timothy Wallace; who actually should have been retired for at least two decades already. "Hydra – The Sea Serpent" is indescribably entertaining for all the wrong reasons. Whenever the film attempts to be spectacular and terrifying, you'll find yourself practically laughing your lungs out. The monster is an adorably ridiculous sock-puppet who likes to twist itself around cardboard lighthouses and swallows entire mannequin dolls without even chewing. At a certain point in the film, the critter even manages to grab a helicopter out of the sky and munch it. Also, pay attention to the catchy but nevertheless knocked-off Jaws music whenever the monster threatens to pop its head out of the water. Okay, the film is too long in parts, especially since Amando De Ossorio insisted to provide the obligatory "let's-fall-in-love" montage and several more completely irrelevant sub plots, but overall "Hydra – The Sea Serpent" is the type of garbage I instantly fall in love with.

This is the worst movie I have ever seen. A movie that is about a stupid looking monster from the ocean that threatens a small town which has to be filled with the dumbest people on earth. SPOILERS IF YOU EVEN CARE They can't even kill the damn thing by the end of the movie. The movie ends and they're like, "Well, some day we'll have to kill it."Avoid at all costs.

This strange horror/adventure film is worth watching it just for its main character... the sea-serpent. Yes, it´s a very realistic monster, at least to me. The actors are fine and the plot is quite intriguing. A nuclear bomb is the responsible for the giant serpent awakening and its rage... so never dump nuclear residues into the sea!!... that´s the lesson!!.

I have a VHS copy of this lame film subtitled in Portuguese. It has some truly laughable scenes with a giant a sea Serpent engulfing a whole woman in the Tamariz beach at night...On the underwater sequences the "monster" looks like a muppet!... A MUST SEE!!!