Or something. I see it's called "Dark Seas" now but I could swear it was "Seas of Darkness" when it first aired. I think it was renamed "Chupacabra Terror" for its much anticipated DVD release. Whatever. Anyhow a cryptozoologist catches one and smuggles it aboard a cruise ship. After a safe and uneventful voyage it is studied by science and hailed as the eighth wonder of the world. Naw I'm kiddin' it gets loose and kills folks.

Well, here we go again. It's another Saturday night and I'm watching another stupid Sci-Fi channel monster movie, 'cause it's a long time ago and don't know what Netflix is yet. The Sci-Fi channel assembles so many of these things you'd think every so often they'd get it right just by accident, but no. Their network bigwigs must be actively purging these productions of every last mote of potential movie joy. "No no no, this screenplay hasn't been properly sterilised, this actor is distinguishable from a Ken doll, this music doesn't sound like a car commercial, get out of my office!". "Oh also I'm a big fat stupid asshole for cancelling Mystery Science Theater". Yeah it'll be a cold day in Heck when I pass up a chance to rubbish their kiddie toy movies. I've heard people say we should be nice to them 'cause who else is cranking out a new monster movie every other week and they're the new Hammer or something. Yeah no they're horrible.

What, I don't have to watch 'em? Well I did back then. Maybe you don't realise just how
badly I needed to see a monster movie that night. And yeah okay, they did provide that
service - incredibly poorly. An alcoholic will drink rubbing alcohol if it's in the house.

And such is this - just another freeze-dried entertainment pellet from the Sci-Phlegm channel replicator. Tonight's product concerns that most easily debunked of all god's cryptid monsters, the chupacabra. Coyotes killing livestock? Absurd! They don't even bother putting a real chupacabra in the movie; the monster bears no resemblance whatsoever to the bug-eyed li'l critter of internet fame. Luckily though Syfy's crack team of computer animators must have been busy making a movie about the jackalope or something, 'cause this time an actual monster costume was rented. It's your standard generic bipedal monster; could be a werewolf, mole-man, Southern bigfoot or Mr Hyde. The one thing it's definitely not is a chupacabra. And instead of taking place in some voodoo infested Caribbean island they piss the rest of the chupacabra legend down their leg by setting it aboard a cruise ship. Now that I think of it, there's an episode of Night Stalker about a werewolf on a cruise ship. We could watch that.

I'll give the movie a quarter teaspoon of credit for not having a romantic subplot and for high body count, although most of the kills are squirt some ketchup on the wall while someone's being ripped to bits about three feet to the right of your picture screen. The wererat seems to be teaching us karmic right and wrong through its choice of victims. We knew the rich old lady and her dog would be slain because she was rude to a waiter earlier in the video, and the cryptozoologist who's doing the usual "you mustn't kill it, it's a wonder of science, human lives are expendable!" routine must be killed because oh the irony. And of course the safecracker guy must die for going back for the money. The movie doesn't think we're smart enough to get the point from him lying dead in a pile of cash, so the protagonists beat us about the head with it:

Blonde D-cup heroine: "He went back for the money!"
John Rhys-Davies: "The stupid fool!"
Square-jawed action hero: "It was greed that got him"

YEAH I FUCKING GET IT ALREADY! Liking money is bad! I'm sure the producers of this fine motion picture donated the proceeds to the Girl Scouts of America!

Sometimes I wonder if these movies are even made by grownups. So the ship sends out an S.O.S. which is picked up by a Navy observation post. Guess who answers the radio. An admiral! "We're just a small observation post" he says, but apparently they're big enough to have a freaking admiral answering the phones. Must be some kind of super admiralissimo in charge there. Chupacabra: Seas of Darkness!