There’s a surprising dearth of lighthearted family movies about the Loch Ness Monster. You’d think a cryptid nicknamed Nessie would have more cute-kid adventures. Mostly she seems to feature in documentaries and the odd bit of monster horror.
Luckily for us, there’s a 1996 offering titled, plain and simply, Loch Ness. Ted Danson and Joely Richardson (as a flaming redhead) join Ian Holm and an adorable little redheaded girl in a heartwarming tale of a skeptical scientist who meets his match—in a number of ways—in the fabled loch.
We begin with a prologue. Adorable young Isabel delivers the classic line: “That night was going to change our lives forever.” That’s the night on which Dr. Abernathy, who has had a few drams, wanders away from a pub beside the loch. The night is dark. There’s something in the water. That something hurls the good doctor to his death.
Cut to Los Angeles, where Dr. Jonathan Dempsey has hit bottom. His ancient truck has died on the freeway. His ex-wife is harassing him for money. His career as a university professor has devolved to the point that he’s forced to teach freshmen. (The horror!)
His department head, Dr. Mercer, offers him a combined opportunity and ultimatum. He’ll take over Dr. Abernathy’s research expedition at Loch Ness. There, using the latest technology, he’ll prove conclusively that the Monster does not exist.
Jon refuses. He’s already failed to find a fabled cryptid. Later we’ll learn that he spent years hunting Bigfoot. He’s still famed in certain quarters as Doctor Sasquatch.
Mercer gives him no choice. He’ll go, he’ll hunt, he’ll not find. His budget is unlimited, and he gets the coolest of the tools, the latest (as of 1995) in sonar. He also gets eager assistant Adrian, who Believes.
He runs straight into a cryptid convention that has taken over the awful hotel in which he’s booked. (Every room is decorated in a different tartan.) He flees in his rental car, and wakes in the misty morning to the ire of a fiery redhead who upbraids him for blocking her driveway. She’s the proprietor of the pub from which Dr. Abernathy wandered to his death.
We know where that has to be going, especially when we realize that young Isabel is hot-tempered Laura’s daughter. Jon ends up staying in the inn above the pub, though it’s the off season and the inn is closed and the room rate is exorbitant. But Mercer is paying. Jon doesn’t care what it costs.
There’s drama on multiple fronts. Dark-browed Andy, who owns the boat the expedition has rented to carry the sonar and scan the loch, has his eye on Laura, but Laura isn’t giving him any encouragement. Andy doubles the rent on the boat, but again, it’s Mercer’s money.
The Water Bailiff, meanwhile—a stern and somewhat sinister Ian Holm, still a few years shy of his much more famous role as Bilbo Baggins—makes clear to Jon that he does not approve of the expedition. The Monster is a Mystery. She’s been one for 1400 years, since the time of St. Columba. And so she should remain.
The Bailiff is the keeper of the loch, Adrian tells Jon. He’s been there since 1932, which makes him considerably older than he looks. He watches and waits. And judges.
There’s an assortment of locals, too. Regulars in the pub. A small chorus of ladies who offer commentary on the handsome American scientist. A wild-eyed crackpot who screams at the expedition from his junk-laden camp on the shore and warns Jon off “MY MONSTER!”
Jon has a job to do, and he does it, in spite of hazing that escalates to the point of physical damage to the boat. In the meantime Jon and Laura stop bickering and start falling for each other, and Jon becomes fast friends with Isabel. It seems that he’s going to fulfill his contract with Mercer and find absolutely nothing in the loch.
But we know there’s something there. There are hints and foreshadowings. Suggestions of things in the water. And not just otters, or salmon, or sturgeon. Something killed Dr. Abernathy.
The night before he’s about to leave for home with his non-proof, Jon opens the bag Dr. Abernathy left behind, and finds a camera. Being a Real Scientist, he instantly rigs a darkroom in the lav and develops the film. And lo and behold, the last photo Dr. Abernathy took is of something remarkable. A shadow of a bulbous body. A distinctively shaped object that might be a fin.
His skepticism transforms into an almost manic excitement. He goes hunting again, convinced now that there is something there after all, hiding in “cracks” in the side of the loch. The sonar actually finds something, a moving object forty feet long, that rams the boat and destroys it.
Adrian saves him, then the Bailiff shows up in his rowboat. They carry Jon back to shore.
There’s more drama with Andy, who beats Jon up over his budding romance with Laura. While Laura nurses him, Izzy makes him a get-well card that features a drawing of a creature he recognizes. It has the same shape of body and the same fin as the one in the photo.
Izzy is a very special child. She comes from a line of Celtic women with the Sight. She has not only seen the creature, which she calls the kelpie, she’s made friends with it. She invites Jon to come and see it.
It’s a long and somewhat epic journey, down below the ancient castle where the kelpie has often been seen, through a deep dungeon to a tiny opening that reveals a hidden cavern. She warns Jon to turn off his flashlight. Light scares them, she says.
And there they are, not one but two huge prehistoric creatures rising up out of the water. Izzy apparently is able to communicate with them. They’re gentle with her, with wise and intelligent eyes. They loom over her, gazing calmly at the stranger she’s brought with her.
Jon is enthralled. He pulls out the camera and starts shooting. When the flash goes off, so do the the kelpies. They bring down half of the cavern in their flight, and nearly drown Izzy.
Jon has his proof. He has photos. At long last, his career is made. He’s found an actual cryptid.
He knows exactly what it is. It’s a convergent subspecies: a hybrid of plesiosaur and elasmosaur. It’s survived for millennia in caves under the loch. It’s a life-changing, world-changing discovery.
Izzy won’t speak to him. Laura is furious. Mercer is thrilled. There’s fame and fortune for him, too, as the head of the expedition.
On the train to London and the big reveal to the world, the Bailiff confronts Jon and so far as swallows his pride as to beg him. Don’t do this. Don’t turn this ancient mystery into a media circus. Science might analyze and investigate and explain, but to what end? And for what benefit?
Jon fulfills his dream of speaking before the Royal Society, but he punks it. Instead of the photos, he puts up a slide of Izzy’s crayon drawing. While the lecture hall erupts and Mercer struggles to do damage control, he slips out into the night.
Meanwhile, on a bus through the wilds of Scotland, the Bailiff opens the bag Jon gave him on the train, and finds an envelope. We know from his expression what’s in it. Jon gave him the photos. And, presumably, the negatives.
The kelpie is safe. The mystery endures. The world won’t know the truth.
As for Jon, there’s no question where he ends up. This is a heartwarming family film, after all. His passionate reunion with Laura, with Izzy beaming in the background, fades into an underwater vision: two prehistoric creatures swimming gracefully away, with a much smaller one behind.
As above, so below, as St. Columba would say.
