El regreso del monstruo

"Revenge Of The Creature" is at best a sequel that pales in comparison to the original, and pretty well done, "Creature From The Black Lagoon." A lot of what made the original movie work is missing here. The performances aren't as good, Lori Nelson (while attractive) isn't as head turning beautiful as Julie Adams was in the original, and, being set mostly (except for the first few minutes) in Florida rather than the Amazon, the sequel lacks some of the mystery of the original.

In "Revenge," the gill-man is captured by scientists and brought to some sort of public aquarium to be studied and to serve as a big attraction for the tourists. Admittedly, one thing this movie had that I didn't find in the original was a bit of sympathy for the creature. You can't help but feel a bit sorry for him chained in the tank and jolted with cattle prods on a regular basis as the tourists gawk at him. The creature is much more the focus of this movie, and the violence he commits is shown much more graphically (although all within the acceptable tastes of 1955, of course.) Where the creature isn't the focus, the movie weakens dramatically. The romance between Clete and Helen was a sort of "ho-hum, who really cares" experience, and why in the world we needed to be introduced to so many cutesy animals doing tricks (the porpoise, the chimpanzee) was beyond me. One thing I couldn't figure out was - even given his obsession with her - how the creature kept managing to find Helen in a variety of places.

Admittedly, the creature is a fun monster to watch; the movie unfortunately is less so. 5/10

In all fairness this movie should be judged for what it is .... a 1950's B Monster movie flick. I give it high marks in this area. It may not have the shock and scare value as it predecessor "The Creature of the Black Lagoon" but I find it to be a good representative of it's genre. A lot of this film was shot at Marineland in Florida at a time before there ever was a Sea World. As a kid I was amazed at some of the scenes in the film such as "The Creature" over turning a car as he was escaping the Aqua Park, and jumping out of a huge aquatic tank to attack the audience. Recently I talked with Ricou Browning (who played "The Creature") and determined that Universal Studios used wires to turn over the car that was supposedly thrown by the Creature. Wires were once again used to pull the Creature out of the large tank at Marineland as the Creature attacked actor, John Bromfeld. Seconds later he was attacking the Marineland crowd. As a young theater goer I found this fascinating. This film has been taking a lot of heat from some of your web site critics. I think it is well worth watching to see how the old Hollywood crowd use to scare us at the Drive-In. If nothing else it serves as a pleasant stroll down "memory lane".

MORD39 RATING: ** out of ****

This first sequel to CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is pretty standard stuff, although I've always preferred the look of the monster in this film even over the original. He appears darker and somehow that strikes me as better.

Other than that, it's pretty much run-of-the-mill as the Creature is captured and then escapes from a Marineland attraction. I suppose that the idea of the Creature becoming a major attraction as a sideshow exhibit is interesting, but it becomes tedious at times as we watch John Agar and Lori Nelson try to train and feed him in his new environment. Lori Nelson has some pretty dumb dialogue at times, too.

This film is not beyond enjoyment, though. When you consider that JAWS 3D (also from Universal) copied the idea of this film with disastrous results, REVENGE OF THE CREATURE looks pretty decent indeed.

Yep, the gill-man from "Creature from the Black Lagoon" is back! This time, they capture him and put him in a Florida aquarium. But sure enough, the poor sucker has the hots for a beautiful young woman.

"Revenge of the Creature" is simply a fun movie to watch. Admittedly, a lot of it is VERY dated, but we can understand that. To be certain, a specific shot of Lori Nelson must have given millions of boys their first carnal experience. Of course, one of the most significant things about this movie is the appearance of Clint Eastwood in his debut: he plays the lab technician who can't find his mouse. Dirty Harry isn't feeling so lucky in that scene after all! Anyway, it's the sort of movie that you just watch to enjoy. They must have had fun making it. Also starring John Agar (Shirley Temple's first husband).

Like I said: millions of boys must have LOVED that one shot of Lori Nelson!

No doubt designed to make a fast buck in the 50s, you still get the Gill Man, one of the coolest of all monster designs ever, and a woman to throw cars for and swim thousands of miles for in beautiful Lori Nelson.

Even in a production without much life, the Gill Man still seems

powerful and mysterious, and his biological drive to mate with Ms. Nelson is interesting considering the long lineage of sympathetic monsters in love with knock-out blondes and brunettes. Sadly, the idea of the monster, the tragic beast longing for what is impossible to him (Wolf Man, King Kong, the Mummy) is a distant memory in filmdom. There was the recent DARK MAN, and Nicholson's WOLF, but these are obvious throw-backs to a time when monsters were more than scurrying guerrillas attacking from the shadows or machine-like mass murderers who cannot be killed. I won't count fluffy-haired vampires, whose allure as suave parasites is not "monstrous". A monster, in classic terms, in love with a beautiful woman, is denied her by the facts of their existence. Either because of grotesqueness or species-differences,

the monster endures pain, capture, and often death in his attempt to carry a Lori Nelson in his arms through a moonlit swamp.

In REVENGE the Gill Man is probed, prodded, and stared at by tourists, definitely the worst fate, though this allows the Creature to establish a magnetic attraction to Lori Nelson. You get a great escape, more Lori Nelson in bathing suits, a big bohunk who has an unhealthy fetish with wrestling the Gill Man hand-to-hand, and lots more Lori Nelson in a bathing suit. What you don't do is watch this movie for any reason but to see the Gill Man thrash in the water and smack

bohunks...and if you're a fan of the Creature and classic monsters, you'll understand the tragic consequences when you're a walking fish-man who's half-man enough to love a human woman, and whose tears probably would never show, in the depths of the deepest lagoons.