Creature

This is a fun little film that I used to see its kind playing in the drive-in back in the 1970s and early 1980s. It is always good to see Sid Haig, who starred in many of drive-in exploitation flicks back in the day before House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects made him a horror icon. The plot is pretty basic: six friends go into the swamp to check out a local legend and fall prey to a creature from the swamp that looks pretty cool. There is trouble with the locals as well as some personal betrayals going on. I see some early reviewers on this site, knocking the film as expected because, as I imagine, many of them did not grow up watching these creature features and have little love for them. This is the kind of film Drive-In critic Joe Bob Briggs used to review and champion; I only wish I had a chance to see it at a drive-in instead of a indoor theater.

I could tell this movie was going to be great when we walked into the theater and no one else was there. I had expected it to be awful from the get go, but it surprised me by also being completely nonsensical. What looks like a typical "monster eats a bunch of teens in the woods" movie is actually much more convoluted. Throughout, I couldn't shake the feeling that this had started off as a kinky softcore porn that accidentally mutated into a horror movie somewhere along the way. While the breasts all gave a moving performance, the rest of the cast left something to be desired. Of course, that could have just been the weird script. There should have been subtitles for the 40% of the dialogue that was delivered in fake Cajun accents, but what we could understand didn't make things any clearer. I mean, yeah, we got the gist of it, but we just kept asking why. Why did anyone do anything that they did in this film? I guess it's up to the viewer to decide. Audience participation!

I have no idea what the writer and director had on their minds when they set this baby up, but I'm pretty sure I can tell you what they didn't: logic, character development, timing, or continuity. If you love bad horror movies like I do, you might enjoy this, but honestly we spent more time being confused than laughing. Plus I kept waiting for it to stop beating around the bush and just turn into Deliverance 2 already, but it never did.

While I'm not sure what I expected going into this, I didn't really get what I was looking for. I think I was hoping for something a bit more like Hatchet which was a ton of fun and had quite a bit of gore. This movie feels like it's just a step above a Syfy channel movie. If you've ever had the misfortune of stumbling upon one of those without expecting it, you'll know what I mean.

I liked the slight throwback to 80's era movies what with the camping, one-by-one killing, and somewhat gratuitous nudity. Everything else was pretty bland. The creature effects are OK, but not fantastic. The effects in general, really, are just OK. Then there's the suspension of disbelief which is just a bit more than I can handle (aside from the monster stalking the swaps of Louisiana). I won't go into why exactly, but it's just a mess. The movie isn't terrible, but it's certainly not anything that's going on your favorites list.

I want my 1.5hr back. Have never felt the need to criticize before, but this one takes the cake. Worst film of the year! The creature in CREATURE is some guy in a silly plastic mask. Kill scenes contain virtually no gore. It wasn't even fun watching the poor characters getting killed. I mean, what is the sense of watching something like this anyway. Total waste of time!

Gratuitous sex/nudity was alright. Nothing special. More sex in recent remake of Piranha, not to mention way MORE gore. Want a better movie? - Watch that one instead. If you want to waste your time watching a really bad movie, then watch this one. Pacing of movie was also terrible. No suspense whatsoever. Lots of chatter and very little substance.

"What if it happens to be our kin? What if that old fool was right?" Six friends leave for a week of fun in New Orleans when a stop at a local gas station introduces them to the legend of Grimley, a local half-man/half-alligator killer bent on revenge. They decide the best way to enjoy themselves is to venture into the swamp and see if it's real. Tell me you don't want to watch that. I have to admit that I am a sucker for these over the top cheesy killer creature movies. The gold standard to me is a tie between "Piranah" & "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus." Those are fun to watch because they are really cheesy but they know it so they go for the comedy side too. That makes them so much fun to watch. This one had the low-budget cheesy stuff that I was looking for, but it felt like they tried to compensate by making the rest of it as serious as they could. The acting was so bad though that it didn't come off like they wanted. It became a movie that thought it was more serious then it was. Still fun to watch, but not one of the better of this genre. Overall, I was hoping for more comedy to go with the cheese. I give it a C+.