A Creature Was Stirring

So, trying to be spoiler free, the movie is just strange. The acting leaves a lot to be desired. The lighting reminds me of the George Clooney Batman. Some of the effects are fun, as I really do like practical effects over CGI. There are just too many holes in the end. There's an attempt to wrap it all up, but it just can't make up for all the questions. Some of the questions were happening as I watched. Others came at the end. I'm not trying to blast the movie, as it does have a fun quality, but it certainly isn't one I'll be watching again. Also, I feel compelled to do a review, because with the rating currently an 8/10 at the time of me writing, I think I'm trying to set some realistic expectations for future watchers.

The trailer kind of made this seem like it was going to be a creepy home invasion movie but boy is it not that. It's a straight up creature movie, think werewolf movie buttttt not a werewolf. Lol .. it's bizarre, but fun. I loved the saturated colors and look of the movie. It was well-acted, and the gore work was outstanding. Funny and over the top practical effects will always win me over. And surprisingly it has a twist ending I did not see coming. If you like a silly weird horror comedy (ie: Slotherhouse) then check this out. Always glad to add another Christmas horror to the yearly rotation :)

A Creature Was Stirring had a mysterious and interesting premise. The colorful lighting was a fitting addition for the Christmas season and also gave the movie a stylish and unique look. I love creature features, and I was really curious to see what kind of creature it was and how well they would be able to integrate it into the story. From the look of the cover, it reminded me a little of the creature from Splinter (2008) or The Monster (2016), both of which I really like. In fact, in retrospect, the movie had quite a few similarities to Bryan Bertino's The Monster.

The movie has a message and serves as an overall metaphor. While I don't think movies always need a message, I felt it was relatively fitting in this case. There is a lot of dialogue, which caused the story progression to drag a bit and made me feel a little bored at times. At first, you only catch glimpses of the creature, which didn't make the whole scenario feel particularly threatening or believable. However, toward the end, you get a better look at the design, and I thought it was awesome. I really appreciated the practical effects used.

By that point, the movie was fine for me, but in the end, there is a full exposition dump that explains every little detail in great depth, even though it was quite obvious beforehand what had happened. As the audience, these kinds of explanations give you the impression that the filmmakers think their viewers are incapable of piecing things together, which is not the case most of the time. Good movies leave the ending somewhat vague and trust the audience to understand the message and events. This massive exposition dump at the end felt unnecessary and poorly executed.

The movie has some nice elements, and it's overall definitely not terrible. However, it failed to reach its full potential, which is disappointing because it could have been so much more than a slightly below-average creature feature. [4.9/10]

The majority of this movie is surprisingly decent for a low budget, one-location film. Aesthetically the house looks pretty good (aside from some weird lighting choices), the actors all perform adequately, and the entire thing slowly builds up into a seemingly layered and interesting mystery.

While not terribly exciting, I enjoyed the slow progression as the scope of the mystery expanded and we see the characters do stranger and more intense things. I felt like they did a good job making every character seem shady to where a variety of major twist(s) could be plausible and applicable to any (or all) of them, and I was genuinely curious to find out how everything was interconnected.

The creature aspect of the movie is done well considering the film's limitations. You do actually see it from time to time and there are some genuinely creepy practical effects used for it. There is some cheesy stuff too (both in terms of effects and scene where the creature is present), but it doesn't ruin it. Honestly, I wish they had just done a straight creature-feature with the creature being a central character/villain instead of the whole "mystery" aspect where you don't know if the creature is real or not, and I would've liked them to cut out some of the various other things going which reduce the focus on the creature and give ol' spiny some more screen time.

All the serious problems with the film come from the ending. The entire thing is very obviously building to a major reveal which should explain all the weirdness that the audience has been witnessing. Unfortunately, the ending fails COMPLETELY.

It feels like they were writing the story as they went and didn't have an ending in mind but thought "eh, we'll figure it out when we get there". Then the time came and they still didn't have anything that could adequately explain things, so they instead opted for something easy and generic which fails to actually line up with anything that was introduced in the movie.

The ending is cliché and a total cop-out. If you like to try to predict twists than you will absolutely have thought of this but likely dismissed it due to how dumb and nonsensical it would be.

The problem is that the ENTIRE movie hinges on the cleverness of the reveal, and the lame reveal actually ruins, or at least makes insignificant, everything else that happened in the movie. When you go back to the scenarios that played out and take the reveal into account everything actually makes LESS sense and gives the impression it was all a bunch of arbitrary stuff that the writer thought looked or sounded good at the time but doesn't actually tie in or interconnect. Instead of tying things up or providing an explanation, it just introduces a bunch of questions and plot holes.

It's a shame about the ending; this was a solid 5-6 for most of its duration, but, as I stated, the ending makes literally every other aspect of the movie worse, so it's impossible to give it a good overall rating. Worth a watch if you've run out of other horror, but don't have any great expectations.

I had fun watching this one. All of the performances were decent. The first 90% of the movie was straight up campy holiday horror fun. Trapped in a blizzard with a porcupine creature. We've all been there. I actually didn't see the twist coming until well into the second half. That being said, this is partly because the story telling didn't really put in the work. The flood of flashbacks right at the end seemed a bit lazy. I didn't think the ending was terrible but also think the movie would have been much better without it. Turn it off at the breakfast scene and the movie is a 7. Side note, does Connor Paolo not age?