The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep

The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep (presented on-screen as simply The Water Horse) is a 2007 fantasy drama directed by Jay Russell from a script by Robert Nelson Jacobs, adapted from Dick King-Smith’s children’s book of the same name. The story follows a young boy, played by Alex Etel, who finds a strange egg and raises the creature that emerges—a “water horse” inspired by the Celtic water horse myth—which grows into what becomes known as the Loch Ness Monster. The cast also includes Emily Watson, Ben Chaplin, and David Morrissey.

The film was produced by Revolution Studios and Walden Media, working with Beacon Pictures, and was released by Columbia Pictures through Sony Pictures Releasing. Visual effects were handled by New Zealand’s Weta Digital and Weta Workshop. It opened in the United States on 25 December 2007 and in the United Kingdom on 8 February 2008. Critics gave it positive reviews, and it earned $104 million worldwide against a production budget of $40 million.

The plot begins in present-day Scotland, where an old man tells American tourists the story behind the famous “Surgeon’s Photo” of the Loch Ness Monster, explaining why it is a fake. In 1942, during World War II, a boy named Angus MacMorrow lives with his mother Anne and sister Kirstie at Lord Killin’s manor on Loch Ness. A handyman named Lewis Mowbray arrives to work there. Angus’s father Charles, the previous handyman, is a Royal Navy sailor missing since his ship was sunk a year earlier, and Angus cannot accept that he is gone. One day, while collecting seashells, Angus finds a large egg in a tide pool. It hatches into a plesiosaur-like creature, which he names Crusoe after Robinson Crusoe. He keeps it secret, eventually telling his sister and Lewis, who explains it is a genderless “Water Horse” that lays one egg and dies before it hatches.

Royal Artillery troops arrive at the manor, commanded by Captain Thomas Hamilton, a friend of Lord Killin. They set up an artillery battery near the loch to defend against German U-boats. As Crusoe grows too large to hide, Lewis decides they must release him into the loch. Captain Hamilton considers Lewis a bad influence, and Angus’s mother allows Hamilton to discipline the boy. After a few days of training, Angus escapes, returns to the loch, and reunites with a fully grown Crusoe, who lets him ride on his back. Despite initial fear of diving,