The Creeper

Neurotic Nora (Janis Wilson) is deathly afraid of felines and suffers from recurring nightmares of a menacing cat's paw coming through her bedroom window or emerging from beneath her bed. After her scientist father (played by Ralph 'The Wizard of Oz' Morgan) is killed, clawed to death in the first of several murders, Nora finds herself targeted by the killer, who has been using an experimental serum to transform his hand into a large cat's claw.

The Creeper (which has nothing at all to do with Rondo 'The Creeper' Hatton) is a weak B-movie horror that does very little of interest for the majority of the sixty-four minute run time, with the killer's claw mostly shown as a shadow on a wall. Only in the closing moment does the villain reveal his deadly claw to terrified Nora (his hand transforming via a series of shoddy dissolves), and it looks every bit as daft as it sounds. John Baragrey plays scientist Dr. John Reade, who saves Nora in the nick of time.

Even at just over an hour long, this one is hard to remain engaged with, the dull dialogue and stilted performances making it a laborious watch. The premise is wonderfully loopy, but the execution is mundane. 2.5/10, rounded up to 3 for IMDb.

I am not a great fan of Jean Yarbrough, I will put him as the same scale as Reginald Le Borg. Both had very close like careers, both made cheap horror films, both directed Joe Palooka's flicks. Not the best they let in audiences memories. But this one, thanks to Eduardo Ciannelli, is very exciting, though not as the same scale as a Jacques Tourneur's horror film such as CAT PEOPLE or LEOPARD MEN, or, more simple, the Val Lewton's productions. Yarbrough was not that good, but only a little horror films director whose most of this early work is uninteresting, unlike his second part of career stuff. This one is really worth for horror fans or gem diggers.

Although the film's director and actor Onslow Stevens have done similar work for Universal, this film is more reminiscient of Val Lewton's horror thrillers for RKO. The film title itself refers to a black cat and many of the key scenes take place in dark, shadowy environments. Also, like Lewton, you don't see the monster until the very end. Interestingly, CREEPER features dream sequences that reminds me of RKO's noir films. CREEPER is from 20th Century-Fox. However, the story is typical of mid-40s Universal horror flicks while the mood is characteristic of Lewton's CAT PEOPLE films.

Oddball horror flick about a woman (Janis Wilson) who is petrified of cats, thinks she is being pursued by a giant catlike thing, and spends most of the film in a catatonic state. Her father, played by Ralph Morgan, is engaged in research with Onslow Stevens. They have the brilliant idea that they can illuminate internal organs. Because, don't we want everyone to see what's inside our intestines? Somehow this research involves experiments on cats, which, like everything else in the film, remains unexplained. Down the hall, Eduardo Ciannelli is also working on an experiment. He is trying to prove he can do a German accent. His associate, played by John Baragrey, has fallen for Wilson, much to the chagrin of Onslow's assistant, played by the icily cold June Vincent.

Now that we have all the players, it's on to the plot. Several characters go belly up, apparently clawed to death. Is there some kind of cat creature on the prowl? Richard Lane shows up as a detective, doesn't bother to show anybody his credentials, and yet everybody answers his questions. Perhaps he should be on a Senate committee. In the finale, we learn the killer's identity, if you hadn't already figured it out 5 minutes into the film.

The photography is pretty good, with effective use of shadows. And the film is atmospheric, in the same sense that a solid waste disposal plant is.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Jean Yarborough; Executive Producer; Ben Pivar; Produced by Bernard Small for 20th Century-Fox release. Screenplay by Maurice Trombagel; Photography by George Robinson; Edited by Saul Goodkind; Music by Milton Rosen. Starring: Eduardo Cianelli, June Vincent, Onslow Stevens, Janis Wilson, Ralph Morgan, John Baragrey, Philip Ahn, Lottie Stein, Richard Lane, David Hoffman and Stuart Holmes.

Fairly uninteresting 1940s horror film with a typically mysterious creep creeping about in the shadows, and attempting to make everyone feel creepy.