Creature - Il mistero della prima luna

My reaction to hearing about Creature, "Klaus Kinski in a creature feature? Count me in, baby!" My reaction after watching Creature, "Ehhh, sh!t."

The story of Creature revolves around dueling spaceship companies (haha) who end up discovering on Saturn's moon, Titan, a creature who's been in slumber for over 2,000 centuries. That's alotta snoozin. So obviously when this creature wakes up it's gonna be hungry as hell. And low and behold it is. The crew discover that the German Spaceship Company has touched down before they have, and when they land they also learn that may have been a godsend. Because they're all dead. Well, besides Klaus. He managed to stay alive. Yay! Well, Kinksi, the romantic waitress from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and the rest of the American Spacemen are trying to figure out to get off this rock and survive the Creature's wrath while doing so.

Didn't I just make that sound awesome? No? Oh. Well, like my summary the movie isn't very awesome either. But it's not totally worthless. Klaus in his minuscule screen-time plays his part in a pretty likable way. The gore though not a lot wasn't that bad, the sets were pretty good but too dark, and the cheesy writing and decision making were enough to make you smile. The ending especially was chock full of stupidity. Anyways, all these ingredients made a decently cheesy flick. Oh, it was a tad too long as well.

I have to leave my biggest qualm (word of the day) for the end of his utterly pathetic review. The Creature was a total disappointment. By the looks of it on the cover it looks like a freak monster ant-eater type thing. And it's cool. But when it's on camera it didn't shine at all. To make matters worse here the creature may possibly be the slowest villain in history of capable villains. Jason does that slowass walk thing but he manages to keep up. This thing literally takes 2 second steps, but still it manages to keep right up. There was one scene where they had the Creature in the distance trudging forward while the guy's screaming "Hurry up!". The dude's freaking out for no reason because the creature probably made about 3 feet in all the time he was panicking.

What a stupid review, huh? Anyways, if you like Alien ripoffs, Klaus Kinski, that chick from Pee Wee's Big Adventure, little bits of nudity and gore then check out Creature.

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'.

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

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.