| Beast | |
| Author: | Peter Benchley |
| Country: | United States |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Horror |
| Publisher: | Random House (US) Hutchinson (UK) |
| Release Date: | 1991 |
| Media Type: | |
| Preceded By: | Rummies |
| Followed By: | White Shark |
Beast is a 1991 novel by Peter Benchley, the author of Jaws.
A fishing community in Bermuda is disrupted by a series of mysterious disappearances at sea. Veteran fisherman Whip Darling suspects the truth, and after discovering two large hooks alongside first mate Mike Newstead; Whip Darling advises confidant Marcus Sharpe, a local Navy pilot, that the culprit is Architeuthis dux: a giant squid.
A marine biologist called Herbert Talley also guesses the truth after the latest disaster, and convinces the millionaire father (Osborne Manning) of two of the victims (Scott Manning and Susie Manning) to fund a hunt for the creature. The local mayor (St. Liam John) attempts to overrule all parties and participates in an exploratory mission on a mini-submarine, but is killed when the creature destroys the vessel. Whip Darling's crewmate (Mike Newstead) also perishes.
Although reluctant to participate any further, Whip Darling is blackmailed when Osborne Manning assumes ownership of his outstanding mortgage. Leaving wife (Charlotte Darling) and daughter (Dana Darling) back at home Whip Darling, Marcus Sharpe, Herbert Talley and Osborne Manning embark on a new hunt, although Osborne Manning is later killed in an accident. The creature is attracted by hormones Herbert Talley cultivated from a pair of dead giant squid in an attempt to trap it. The trap fails, and the enraged squid threatens to sink their vessel. Whip Darling wounds the creature with an explosive he and Marcus Sharpe had made, but the creature survives. Before the squid can kill them, however, a sperm whale, (presumably the mother of a young whale the squid had eaten earlier) arrives and kills it.
Whip Darling’s ship is lost but the group survive on a floating piece of debris and are driven back to land by the current. However, they are oblivious to the fact that an abnormally large number of the squid's spawn have survived and due to overfishing will grow to adulthood unchallenged.[1] [2] [3] [4]
Beast was adapted into a TV movie called The Beast in 1996, starring William Petersen as Whip Dalton (name change from Darling). Aside from an altered ending with the squid being killed by an explosion instead of a whale, Marcus's character being female, Manning being unrelated to any of the squid's victims and only wanting it as an exhibit for an ocean park, Whip's teenaged daughter having a subplot, and the setting being changed from Bermuda to the Pacific Northwest, the film is regarded as very faithful to the source material.[5] The film was well received and earned high ratings, both earning a nomination in the Daytime Emmy Awards and encouraging future adaptations of Benchley's other works, such as White Shark being adapted as Creature in 1998.[6]