Product Details

• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Wgbh Boston
• VHS Release Date: March 28, 2000
• Run Time: 60 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6305371970
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #298,494 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

If The Beast of Loch Ness makes anything clear, it's that Scotland is a beautiful land overrun by cryptozoologists. These are researchers who seek to prove the existence of hitherto unclassified species--the stuff of eyewitness testimony, legend, and lively tourist industries. Using an expedition to Loch Ness as a framing device, the video returns obsessively to the adventures of Bob Rines and the late Charlie Wyckoff, much the same way the two enthusiasts, despite the indifference of the scientific community, have returned avidly to this folkloric location--the largest, deepest, coldest body of water in the British Isles, a 25-mile-long peat-obscured lake scooped out of the Great Glen by a glacier of the last ice age. Will Rines and Wyckoff finally capture unambiguous images of the fabled monster? And does Nessie, whose extended-family members apparently live in other lakes as far away as Siberia and the American Northeast, exist at all?

Coming back to the Northern Highlands after a hiatus of a quarter century, Rines and Wyckoff, with help from the devoted and skeptical from both sides of the Atlantic, want the answer. They troll the lake with a combination of high and low(-beam) technology--that is, a global-positioning relay system and sonar in tandem with underwater cameras lit with automotive headlights. Their findings are similarly mixed, and the episode remains tantalizingly suggestive. Rines and Wyckoff may be notorious for producing a series of grainy stroboscopic underwater images in the early '70s, prompting another scientist to claim that they'd found a plesiosaur, thought to be long extinct. But even more notorious, of course, is Lieutenant Colonel R. Kenneth Wilson's 1934 snapshot of a black, curved neck extending from the loch. That was just a hoax--but maybe the story of the hoax was itself a hoax? Painstaking re-creations of the photograph's genesis keep you guessing. Prehistoric cold-blooded reptile? Ancient form of whale? Schools of migrating salmon? Gigantic eels or sturgeon dropping in from the sea? Motorboat wakes? You decide. --Robert Burns Neveldine

Product Description

Is the Loch Ness Monster a hoax, an undiscovered species, or a shared illusion born of myth, mirage and wishful thinking? Join NOVA for an all-out investigation of the mystery as MIT-trained investigators scour the loch with sophisticated sonar, biologists and geologists explore whether a new species may still await discovery in Britain's largest lake, and the most famous photo of Nessie is put to the test.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Documentary on Interesting Topic, June 6, 2001

By 

Austin C. Beeman (Waterville, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nova: Beast of Loch Ness [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This Nova presentation on the mystery of Loch Ness is more riveting than the average television documentary. It focuses on a modern expedition to discover whether or not there is a creature in Loch Ness.

Unlike most others of this kind, this documentary is well produced both in information and enjoyability. It is worth watching for the beautiful images of Loch Ness if nothing else.

After visiting Loch Ness myself and speaking with many "monster hunters," I am impressed by the evenhandedness of the program. One of the best Nova episodes.

I just wish the VHS was a little less expensive.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong Documentary From NOVA, December 28, 2004

By 

C. Morris - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nova: Beast of Loch Ness [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is definately one of the best documentaries I've seen on the Loch Ness Monster. Very convincing that there IS something in Loch Ness, be it a plesiosaur, sturgeon, unknown species, etc...
The recreation of the Surgeon's photo is also interesting, especially the mixed results that make one ponder whether the hoax claim was a hoax itsself.
Anyhow, it's enjoyable, interesting, and proves a point that Loch Ness is still worth researching.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting, January 18, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: Nova: Beast of Loch Ness [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I bought this movie thinking it would be like most other Loch Ness books/movies, comparing pictures, sceptic points of view, and "believer" points of view. But this one was different.
It shows an actual expedition, recreates pictures, and interviews Nessie see-ers. If for nothing else, buy this movie for the views.