Books
‘The Beast’ at 30: Revisiting Peter Benchley’s Other Aquatic Horror Story
For all the strange and possibly dangerous things found in deeper waters, sharks are perhaps the most feared. More deserving of your maritime phobia, though, is a sort of predator whose appearance defies comprehension.
These particular creatures look as if they’ve come from another world. Nevertheless, the incredible squid is here, has been since prehistoric times, and they come in all shapes and sizes. In that last regard, they can range from tiny to massive, with the larger specimens becoming the stuff of legends. Ever heard of the Kraken? Well, this is one case where the myth turned out to be real.
Although it’s more elusive than fictional, giant squids still remain as something of a mystery these days. Born out of that mystique is the inclination to make them scary. The giant squid, or Architeuthis dux if you’re nerdy, doesn’t need a lot of help in that one area. On top of their sheer enormity, they have ten “arms” that include two long tentacles, plus a tongue coated in teeth. It’s the stuff of nightmares. Nevertheless, Peter Benchley tried to do for these animals what he did for the great white; he plucked one rather ornery specimen from the depths and made it mankind’s problem.
When writing 1991’s Beast, author Peter Benchley returned to the subject that made him famous. That, of course, was the vast sea. Benchley also didn’t stray far from the formula of nearly all aquatic monster horror made since Steven Spielberg’s Jaws was first unleashed. An aggressive, or misplaced, sea animal lays waste to anyone foolish enough to take a dip. Yet prior to getting back on the shark boat, as he did in 1994’s White Shark—later retitled Creature for the TV tie-in—Benchley delivered this squid tale that, to this day, may be the only one of its kind. That is, a story where the man-eating squid is the star, as opposed to the guest star.
Peter Benchley’s Beast. Cover art by Jerry LoFaro.
Unlike Jaws, Benchley wasn’t involved in the screenplay for Beast. Or The Beast, as it became known. The script was courtesy of one fairly new writer on the block, J.B. White, whose sole credit up to that point was a sinister grandpa TV-movie starring Andy Griffith. So, yes, The Beast was a big deal for White, along with director Jeff Bleckner. Additionally, NBC was banking on this sweeps stunt to pull in the numbers during late April (and ahead of “Monster May“). According to the Nielsens, this two-night event did quite well. Swimmingly, you might even say.
Growing up with SYFY made it seem like monster TV movies weren’t all that unusual. However, for one to show up on 1990s American primetime and on one of the major three networks was a bit of an anomaly. NBC neither hid the fact that they were airing a creature feature, nor did they hold back on the marketing; the rollout included a huge building spread in Los Angeles, plus a website devoted to the TV event. Through the latter, you learned the process to make the monstrous main attraction, courtesy of Mixon & Ellis FX, as well as trivia about real giant squids.
The rights to Benchley’s Beast were optioned some years before it was made and aired. Nevertheless, Jurassic Park must have had a say in the squid production’s go-ahead. The Beast splashed its way onto television in the spring of ‘96, shortly before monsters started trampling all over the big screen. Keep in mind, The Lost World: Jurassic Park, The Relic, Anaconda, Deep Rising, and the first Godzilla remake all came out after The Beast. Before then, you were more likely to see this type of movie being sent straight to video, even in the wake of Spielberg’s successful dino epic.
NBC’s old website for The Beast. Screenshot courtesy of Dinosaur Dracula.
Taking the TV route for a monster movie would seem like a total downgrade, especially in the production department. In many cases, this is often true. Yet with a reported $12 million to spend—how much of that number was just for the squid is unclear—the namesake of The Beast looks decent. Good, if we’re being generous. Once you remember the timestamp, the overgrown mollusk is, on occasion, a little impressive. It’s not the stuff of blockbusters, but one can definitely spot where the money went (and didn’t go).
On the surface, the novel and miniseries (or movie) aren’t radically different from one another. In either version, a coastal area is targeted by the tentacled threat, and then desperate measures are taken to expel it. That leap from Bermuda to Washington, specifically an unsubtly named resort community called Graves Point, has no major bearing on the overall story. Either fictional setting is overfished, full of struggling residents, and a factor in the squid’s new diet. What largely changed from the book, apart from the creature being upsized and its having a partner-in-crime/offspring, was really the characters. Oh, and there is also the novel’s use of deus ex machina—at the last second, the squid is defeated by a sperm whale, not the humans.
Changes made to the cast run from small to significant, but for the most part, they are inoffensive. A few are even beneficial. The protagonist going from married to widowed allows for him, Whip Dalton (played on screen by William Petersen), to be freed up for a budding romance with Lieutenant Kathryn Marcus (Karen Sillas). Who, by the way, is an amalgam of two characters from the book. While it was reduced in the condensed version of the miniseries, Kathryn’s personal battle against sexism in the navy is one example of how the TV adaptation improved on the source material. By comparison, the women were neglected, or simply forgotten, by the book’s end. Whip’s daughter Dana, for instance, passed through without making as much as a ripple in the novel’s story, whereas Missy Crider’s Dana has an entire character arc.
It could just be the nostalgia talking here, but The Beast actually holds up as a pretty entertaining dose of sea horror. Does it look and feel like a ‘90s TV movie? Yes, and that’s because it is one. Yet for a killer squid story hailing from the small screen, this one turned out better than anticipated. Now, if someone out there wants to remake Peter Benchley’s novel, with more money and bigger names involved, then I am certainly not opposed. There’s even a bigger squid lurking out there in the briny deep—the colossal squid—that would make for a great villain.
The Beast is still available on DVD.
William Petersen, Karen Sillas and Larry Drake in The Beast (1996).
There’s a lot of reading left to do in 2026, between the glut of summer releases and the approach of fall, when horror titles get a special push from publishers, but this has already been an incredible year for horror literature.
Some of the biggest names in the genre have turned in outstanding work, rising stars have made their mark, and we’re only halfway through the year.
To celebrate the midway point of 2026, with plenty of horror books still to come, we’re taking a look back at the best horror books we’ve read this year so far, listed alphabetically by author.
If you missed any of these books earlier in the year, consider this your reminder to catch up.
Japanese Gothic by Kylie Lee Baker
A student running from a crime he may or may not have committed escapes to his father’s country home in Japan, only to find himself haunted by strange apparitions, while in the past, a young samurai tries to find salvation for her family and finds a door to the future instead. Kylie Lee Baker’s Japanese Gothic begins with this dialogue between past and present, and then blossoms into so much more, a cross-time ghost story about old wounds and what it really takes to finally heal them. I got so happily lost in this one that I would have read at least 200 more pages.
Persona by Aoife Josie Clements
In this tale of shut-ins, sex workers, artists, and the horrors they both summon and recoil from, Aoife Josie Clements weaves something that feels less like a story to be experienced and more like a psychic wound to be endured, and I mean that in the most complimentary way possible. Evocative in its prose and nightmarish in its imagery, Persona is a story of the masks we wear, and the understanding that not all of our masks are particularly pretty or even easy to breathe through. It’s a dense, literary, unnervingly vicious book, and while it’s already attracted an audience, it deserves a much bigger one.
Dead First by Johnny Compton
Johnny Compton’s latest novel opens with a throwing down of the gauntlet, a sequence that made me instantly think “How on Earth is he going to top this?” It’s a story that begins with a billionaire hiring a private investigator to determine why, despite trying in many brutal ways, he cannot die. That premise, and the scene which sets it all off, is so alluring and delightfully gruesome that you almost can’t believe it’s the way a book begins, and then Compton just keeps going, delivering a supernatural mystery that I could not put down.
Make Me Better by Sarah Gailey
A woman grieving for the life she wanted visits a mysterious island renowned for the healing salt its residents harvest and sell, seeking renewal and relief. What she finds instead is a strange cult with a twisted history with surprising resonance in her own life, and a people who are more than willing to grant the relief she wants, for a price. Laced with beautiful prose and moments of profound realization alongside folk and even cosmic horror, this is vintage Sarah Gailey.
Partially Devoured by Daniel Kraus
If you love horror film history and analysis, Partially Devoured is an essential. Written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Daniel Kraus, the book is a deep dive into his favorite movie of all time, George A. Romero‘s Night of the Living Dead, complete with exhaustive research into the making of the film and passages of deeply moving memoir woven in. If you’ve ever wanted to know what the eerie music that opens the film is called while also bursting into tears at how horror movies can save your life, this is a must-read.
Wretch by Eric LaRocca
Our reigning King of Extreme Horror, Eric LaRocca weaves books of uncommon beauty out of the most nightmarish parts of humanity, and Wretch is no exception. The story of a grieving man who longs for relief and searches for it amid a strange support group that might be a cult, Wretch is a brutal journey into the darkest part of us all, and explores what salvation we might find when we get to the rotten core of the world and peel back its layers. LaRocca’s on a tear of great work right now that few other genre writers can match.
Headlights by CJ Leede
A mystery, a serial killer horror show, a tribute to Stephen King‘s The Shining. All of these things describe CJ Leede’s Headlights, and yet they don’t begin to cover the full breadth of horror awaiting you in this novel. The story of a former FBI agent drawn back into the cold case that haunts him most, it’s a shocker brimming over with vivid moments that’ll live behind your eyes. CJ Leede has now published three novels, and they’re all bangers, so it’s time to get on board if you haven’t already.
It Came From Neverland by Cynthia Pelayo
Cynthia Pelayo has been one of our finest genre writers for years now, but It Came From Neverland is my favorite thing she’s written, and it’s not even close. A dark take on Peter Pan from the perspective of an adult Wendy Darling living in World War I-era London, Pelayo’s book works as both a satisfying horror narrative and a rich exploration of what it really means to never grow up. The horror never loses its potency, but it’s the search for the meaning behind the Peter Pan phenomenon in our own lives, and what we can do about it, that sticks with me most.
Filth Eaters by Ito Romo
Ito Romo’s Filth Eaters is a slim volume, one you can read in just a couple of hours if you’ve got the inclination, but it has the feel of a generation-spanning epic. The story of a breed of vampires born in Central America, the European vampires who encounter them, and the offspring they eventually produced, it spans centuries and packs loads of juicy lore into its pages while never losing its grip on character and narrative drive. I would read hundreds more pages of this world, but I’ll settle for this uncommonly grand-scale novella for now.
Dead But Dreaming of Electric Sheep by Paul Tremblay
A former pro gamer gets a job at a tech company to pilot a brain-dead human body across the country, and so Paul Tremblay’s sci-fi-horror juggernaut begins. Indebted to Philip K. Dick, the primal snarl of Harlan Ellison, and the quirky comedy of The Big Lebowski, and yet wholly original, this is a towering and ambitious novel by one of horror’s most respected voices. What starts as a high-concept tech thriller soon becomes a startling meditation on the value of stories, who gets to tell them, and what happens when we cede too much control to machines we don’t understand. It’s a stunner.
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