An eccentric ship captain and a crew of specialists plot revenge against the most mysterious creature of the deep— the Lake Michigan Monster.

Writer/Director (deep breath) Ryland Brickson Cole Tews has accomplished a tiny miracle with Lake Michigan Monster.  Movies wherein the characters are deadly earnest and take each plot point with determination and resolve are a dime a dozen. But movies that do that in order to elevate the comedic elements and raise the ridiculousness level , and do it so well, are rare diamonds indeed.

With shades of Airplane!, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra, and those Captain Obvious commercials, Lake Michigan Monster delivers a hilarious take on seafaring revenge stories, and does it all for a budget of about $1.98. Filmed in glorious, scratchy black and white to better emulate the low-budget monster movies of the 1950s, Tews also stars as Captain Seafield, putting together a team of various experts to help him hunt down the creature he claims killed his father. Erick West plays Sean Shaughnessy, weapons pro. Beulah Peters is Nedge Pepsi, in charge of sonar. Daniel Long is N.A.V.Y. officer Dick Flynn (that’s the Nautical Athletes and Venture Yunit, not the US Navy). Every single one of these actors is totally committed to the weirdness of the moment and to the reality of their own characters, making the whole enterprise much more funny than it has any right being.

This movie balances precariously on the shoulders of Tews, who proves to be more than capable of balancing about a million plates all at once. And if one begins to wobble or crash to the floor, there is another funnier and even better-constructed plate ready to take its place right away. Not everybody enjoys this type of humor, but I laughed loud and long at Lake Michigan Monster. At one action-packed moment, the characters halt their fight in order to seriously discuss why Michigan’s liquor stores close at 9:00pm.

It’s not all dead-pan non-sequitor jokes, though. Some are downright childish, like the names for the terrible attempts of the crew to capture the creature (“Operation Master Baiters”). But they all work amazingly well together, and there is not a dull moment in the brisk 78-minute film. Kudos to Tews and the rest of his crew for a job very well done. I can’t wait to see what he might do with a bigger budget and more resources.

Lake Michigan Monster premieres at Fantasia Film Fest on July 25, 2019.