Creature

I have fond memories of "Creature (aka Titan Find)" and I can't deny it. I like it so much, I even want to rate it much higher than 4/10, so I'll just go ahead and do it. I saw it for the first time around the approximate age of 12-13 on a strangely compiled theatrical triple horror bill in one of my two hometown cinemas (together with Lamberto Bava's "Demons" and the Charlie Sheen vehicle "The Wraith"), so it's safe to say "Creature" left a life-long impression on me. Many years later now, I can still say that it is one of the best and most enjoyable "Alien" rip-offs ever produced (judged by cash-in standards, naturally). Sure it's a B-movie with anything but great acting... but there's gore (a wonderful head explosion!), nudity (horny naked undead blonde chick without a spacesuit while she was supposed to wear one), a nice-looking (though pretty rubbery) slimy creature-suit design with red glowing eyes, mind-controlling parasites, nifty-looking miniature spacecrafts and... Klaus Kinski as a German astronaut clearly having a lot of fun on the set and ignoring any guidelines from director William Malone. If you haven't grown up during the 80's & 90's getting acquainted with this type of sci-fi & horror movies, you might have a hard time getting into "Creature" and enjoying its dubious pleasures. Not to say: you're very likely to lack any form of appreciation for this type of (sub)genre cinema at all. I say it's great fun. Even a bit scary and atmospheric in some parts where it actually tries to be so, but that's maybe the kid still in me speaking. Yes, having watched "Creature" at a too young age in a big & dark old theatre, I can say it was a tense ride at the time. Does it matter that it's not anymore? Nah, it remains fun all the same. If you ever discovered it as a kid, that is.

Two corporations are competing to mine a 200,000 year old archaeological find on the Saturn moon Titan. The crew of the U.S. ship Shenandoah crashes on the lunar surface, only to find the Germans beat them there. But strange things are abound as the German ship is deserted except for a pesky alien. Lone survivor Hans (Klaus Kinski) tells of the horror his crew encountered from a mind controlling alien, but no one is quick enough to combat it this go around either. It's probably been about 20 years since I last saw this and this low budget production has held up really well. Director Malone is definitely trying to ape Ridley Scott's trend setter, but he ups the gore factor substantially. Malone also seems to be having fun here, as evidenced by the female lead coming up with a way to kill the creature by recalling a screening of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951). He even has a character reading a novelization of his debut feature SCARED TO DEATH (1981). The cast is good with the great Kinski doing his psycho German guy routine (shocking, right?). I wonder if he caused problems on the set as his character disappears, but then comes back zombified with clearly a double in his place.

Maybe I shouldn't, but I feel like on a situational basis I can readily forgive clear aping of pre-established pictures. Maybe those involved wanted to tell their own vision of a similar story, maybe they were on contract, maybe they just wanted an easy paycheck. Certain similarities to 'Alien' and other properties are undeniable, and even the one-word title is decidedly on the nose. None of this inherently means 'Creature' can't be appreciated on its own merits. And hey, there are some recognizable names and faces here! Unfortunately, the moment we get past the superficial bits, the experience begins to degrade. It's not that this is altogether rotten, but the entertainment value never really rises above "moderate."

Imagine, if you will, browsing the Internet and stumbling across trailers for 80s or 90s B-movies, the type that are immediately so outlandish and blunt that one can only react with tempered bewilderment. Think 'Eliminators' (1986), 'Metalstorm: The destruction of Jared-Syn' (1983), or 'Nemesis' (1992) as points of comparison. Now imagine one of these trailers realized as a full-length film that rides on the coattails of a highly respected sci-fi horror flick. That's the experience of watching 'Creature.' A fair portion of the visuals are pretty well done: special effects, creature designs, blood and gore, aspects of the production design and art direction, costume design, makeup. Elsewhere, chiefly interiors, the sets are less readily impressive. All this would be fine if not for the writing and direction, which impact the acting in turn, and other fundamental building blocks of the project. The tone varies between heavy-handed and overdone, lackadaisical and sluggish, airy and nonchalant. Only in moments of abject violence or frightful imagery does the feature seem to strike the right chord, yet for otherwise lack of meaningful atmosphere, tension, or suspense, these peaks aren't enough to carry the day.

William Malone's direction struggles to attain balance between moments of heightened emotions and violence and quiet moments that lack tension, and the same can be said of the score. Though the effects and genre visual elements look great in and of themselves, how they're employed is often somewhat senselessly over the top and forthright, unable to achieve the desired effect. This applies as well to the acting, with infamous legend Klaus Kinski particularly standing out like a sore thumb. Ninety-nine minutes drag on nigh interminably as scene writing, dialogue, characters, and the narrative at large fail to build momentum, let alone sustain any; for all the good ideas here, the plot is kind of all over the place, and there's far too little of the necessary refined touch to make anything stick. However much one wants to draw comparisons to other movies, 'Creature' could claim some strong potential all the same - but as it presents, it's instead largely so uninteresting that the viewing experience becomes a question of keeping ourselves occupied so we can maybe watch it with half our attention, for that's all the more it really earns.

Once again I find myself in the position of wishing I could say I like the picture more than I do. There are surely some worthwhile components here and there. From top to bottom, however, the realization of it all just limps along so blandly that it struggles to produce or maintain excitement or basic engagement. Most action sequences are just uninspiring, even the climax, and the ending is plainly weak and ham-handed - including the abrupt cop-out excuse for why one character just vanished for a substantial portion of the runtime, as though Malone and co-writer Alan Reed literally just forgot about them for most of the screenplay. Maybe, after all, I'm being overly generous in my assessment. I suppose there are worse ways to spend 100 minutes, but that's just it: these are 100 very long minutes, and since that time is best spent only half-watching, why commit to it at all in the first place? 'Creature' isn't downright awful, but even if you're a diehard fan of someone involved, unless you're desperate for genre fare then I can't readily conceive of recommending this.

Of course, this isn't a very good movie. In fact, it's pretty bad but I'm a whole different kind of movie-critic when I watch movies like this. Everybody needs some brainless and fun films to relax from time to time and William Malone's Creature is the perfect film for that. Creature is an shameless ripoff of Alien and it also stole several elements from John Carpenter's The Thing, but I hardly think that's a reason to ignore it completely. From the beginning of this picture you can easily point out those characters who're going to die but that's ok. You stay in your seat just to see in wich horrible ways they come to an end. These are the moments that make this film worth watching. Especially if you like a good share of blood, guts and gore. I tell you, some of the scenes are rated pretty high on the "vomit-scale". So, if you like to see heads flying around and love to see faces being ripped off...Creature is your cup of tea. All together, there are 2 major reasons to check this film out. The first one is the amazingly good musical score. I wasn't able so far to find out who made it, but I don't think they're big names in the field seeing the status of this flick. The score was a pleasant surprise and worth checking out. And last but not least... KLAUS KINSKI !! This guy is ( was...sorry ) a great actor. Without even trying he beats all the other acting-performances. Klaus clearly amused himself while playing the role of Hans Rudy Hofner and his own German accent really works here. I expected his role to be a little bigger but that's ok, the few times he's on screen are the most memorable ones. But it ain't really a big honor to be the best actor in this cast, though. All the others suck pretty bad. Wendy Schaal is very cute in her role of Beth but she can't act very well. That's ok, the girl who plays Susan can't act at all and above that she looks like David Bowie did during the 80's...and that's NOT a compliment !! I'm not even bothering to mention the rest of the cast. Oh, there is one last thing worth checking out on Creature. The very very stupid confession of Mrs. Bryce (Diane Salinger)at the end ...man, that's got to be the most ridiculous plot-twist I ever saw!! I laughed silly with that....4 out of 10

The main problem with this movie is the poor photography. It's just too dark. I'm guessing the darkness was used to hide the low budget set pieces. The other problem is slow pacing, but the decent gore keeps you watching.

The big question I had: what is Klaus Kinski doing in this thing? Just three years earlier he was in 'Fitzcarraldo'. What happened? That would be like Tom Hanks going from 'Forest Gump', to three years later starring in 'Leprechaun 4: In Space'.