Editor’s Note: This was originally published for FANGORIA on September 20, 2004, and we’re proud to share it as part of The Gingold Files.
As a mock-documentary that edges into the horror genre, Zak Penn’s Incident at Loch Ness falls into an interesting gray area between its two most obvious antecedents, The Blair Witch Project and This Is Spinal Tap. Though the intent is satirical overall, the movie is played with a largely straight face, rarely straying into overtly comic territory. As such, an uninformed viewer could watch it for quite some time before realizing that the whole thing is a put-on. The first hint might be the crew jackets emblazoned with the misspelled “EXPEDITITION,” or the moment when the “sonar operator” on that mission arrives and proves to have the face and figure of a Playboy model (because, as it turns out, she is one).
The Loch Ness Monster was a phenomenon just waiting to be the subject of a scare-tinged mock-doc, having been the subject of numerous speculative features and programs (including TV’s In Search Of…, an influence cited by both Penn and the Blair Witch gang). Penn’s great inspiration was to cast as the lead of his onscreen expedition the director Werner Herzog, who is famed for his extravagant—some would say mad—approach to filmmaking (i.e. hauling an actual ship over a mountain for Fitzcarraldo) and his behind-the-scenes clashes with a different sort of monster, actor Klaus Kinski. Penn’s other key, non-hubristic conceit is to cast himself as Herzog’s producer on the latter’s Enigma of Loch Ness project, a screenwriter (as Penn is in real life) now taking charge of a movie for the first time and letting that position of power go to his head.
After a party at Herzog’s house to celebrate the impending Enigma shoot (nicely cast with such eccentric guests as Jeff Goldblum, Crispin Glover and Ricky Jay), Herzog, Penn and crew set off for Loch Ness (shot on location, which adds a lot). The team includes real, seasoned artisans like cinematographer Gabriel Beristain (Blade II), but things quickly begin to go wrong. The boat that the group is to take out onto the loch for location photography, for example, has a motor so loud it’ll interfere with sound recording, which prompts Penn to insist that it be replaced with a “quieter” engine. The trials the company goes through, exacerbated by Penn’s attempts to artificially impose “conflict” on Herzog’s documentary, are amusing without seeming exaggerated beyond what media-savvy viewers are used to from DVD extras and behind-the-scenes tell-alls. Many of the complications seem no more (and some seem rather less) extreme that what can be seen in the likes of Project Greenlight.
If Incident at Loch Ness thus misses out on being a laugh-out-loud farce, it exerts a different kind of fascination, and allows one to become caught up in its story even given the knowledge that the whole thing is staged. There’s honest if comic tension in the escalating conflict between Herzog (perfectly playing himself as an obsessive but thoughtful auteur), who is determined to focus on the truth, and Penn (not quite as convincing as a crass manipulator presumably very different from his real self), who at one point resorts to having a crude papier-mâché Nessie thrown over the side and insisting Herzog film it. The movie also touches on the disapproval of the locals, who’ve had it up to here with the filmmakers’ attempts to exploit their home, and includes silly comments by a self-styled “cryptozoologist”—all the kind of stuff you’d expect to see in a bona fide documentary on this subject.
And what about the Loch Ness Monster itself? Well, the Discovery 4 (the name Penn christens their boat for dramatic purposes, even though there was no Discovery 1, 2 or 3) gets a suspicious bump in the early part of their excursion, and the water swirls menacingly in the background at one point; more should not be revealed. What can be said is that the proceedings never become so fanciful that they completely give away the joke. From beginning to end, Penn keeps a firm hand on the reality of the situation, creating an illusion only blatantly shattered by the end-credits revelation that not everybody on screen played themselves.
