In the end of the movie there is scene of the monster swimming away and the sand where it was is sunk by about 3 feet deep and about the size of semi-truck with trailer length and another semi-truck with trailer wide.
The little hair tentacles can latch onto flesh and rip it apart violently.
If you touch the beach or hover your hand over it by about 8 inches in height, the little tentacle fibers will latch on and reel you in to rip you to pieces.
The boyfriend that made it to the picnic table managed to escape the hair-like fiber tentacles and they still ripped his intestines open like dozens of knife stabs... and he still died either from internal injuries or poison from the tentacles. The hair-like fiber tentacles probably were barbed along the length like a line with the letter "A" all along it, stab, then yank back taking chunks of flesh with it.
In short, it was not a monster to be under-estimated in lethality.
The problem I see is that in their escape attempts they didn't utilize their available resources well. They were smart in sharing information and investigating the limits of the creature. Once Kaylee figured out that the hair-fiber strands had length limits and sensitivity to light blockage or motion or heat (no investigation of which) at a distance, they worked around it a bit. Without that knowledge, all of them would have died real quick. Same for the Pepper Spray repelling the creature.
DECOY TACTICS would not work here. Since the monster was like a lethal devouring floormat, active in a large surface area, all the time. So running away over the sand as it devoured another victim would make you just more food to be devoured at the same time.
With the car trunk, all the girl had to do, once opening it, was jam a towel into the partly opened trunk, climb back into the car and pull the trunk open. The back opening gap should've been easy enough to grab through once the trunk was open, but that would defeat the movie.
Same for the boots from the dead beach police guy, they could have fished out the boots from the sand with the rescue hook in the lifeguard cabin. But that might have revealed the stronger smarter pincer tentacles.
Jonah leaps off the picnic table into the firepit, but there are no lethal hair-fiber ripper tentacles there (burned off). Which means they could have made a torch with the wood in the lifeguard cabin and burned away the lethal hair-tentacles as they walked (but they didn't) and it might have triggered the bigger arm-diameter glow tentacles to attack. They didn't try pruning tactics, lure the hair-fiber tentacles to reach out, then slice with a long knife or bash with a pole. The hair-fiber tentacles can latch on and rip apart, but not if they don't latch on.
They could have also stabbed the sand or demolished bits of the lifeguard station to escape by breaking off the awnings, bending them into sleds, then using bits of the railing as push poles to slide their way to safety. But they didn't even try.
Another escape would be to rip apart the leather car seats and make makeshift shoes to run to freedom and safety once they knew the boots would protect them from the hair-fiber ripper tentacles.
They didn't try to hotwire the Beach Patrol truck or radio for help (which was dumb since to a degree, they were "experienced observers" on the nature of the monster). Since they drank some soda, they were unlikely to immediately die of dehydration, but most of the people in car were suffering from some sunstroke and pain of sunburn (averted a tiny bit with the sunscreen) at that point, although the males didn't need a shave (time continuity) by the end of the day.
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cloudslide
7 years ago
You put about as much thought into all the things they could have done as I did. But I already knew what kind of ride it was going to be as soon as that guy DIDN'T use the surf boards to get to the trunk. Which should have been the first thing they did. But in retrospect I think it might have been a continuity error. They mention that the cellphones are in the trunk earlier but later on in the movie they ask the same question again as if they hadn't already discussed it. Not knowing the phones were in the trunk earlier would justify why they didn't go for them sooner.
I also thought they were going to make torches or use the vodka as a molotov but they didn't go for that either.
The monster being an amphibious jelly fish creature that size was pretty interesting. In hindsight the few that did survive were extremely lucky. They stood very little chance against something like that.
Crying children will dry their eyes. Sleeping babies will awaken and take to the skies!
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