Creature

This is a fun little film that I used to see its kind playing in the drive-in back in the 1970s and early 1980s. It is always good to see Sid Haig, who starred in many of drive-in exploitation flicks back in the day before House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects made him a horror icon. The plot is pretty basic: six friends go into the swamp to check out a local legend and fall prey to a creature from the swamp that looks pretty cool. There is trouble with the locals as well as some personal betrayals going on. I see some early reviewers on this site, knocking the film as expected because, as I imagine, many of them did not grow up watching these creature features and have little love for them. This is the kind of film Drive-In critic Joe Bob Briggs used to review and champion; I only wish I had a chance to see it at a drive-in instead of a indoor theater.

While I like creature movies in general, I only like good ones. This movie has no business trying theatrical distribution. Its distributor is going to lose millions.

The movie is basically the same quality and mentality as what you might see produced by Roger Corman or Charles Band, which are dirt-budget cheaply written ride-the-trend productions. To their credit they launch careers for actors and filmmakers trying to get their first break, but the products are horrible.

The Corman / Band era is over, however. Until the 90's, movies like that could take advantage of the fact that nobody knew they sucked until it was too late. Word of mouth was only as good as your local community. Today we have the internet, where everyone with at least one finger and a brain stem can bang out their reaction to a movie and send it up to a site where it gets visibility. Thousands of viewers can rate movies at many sites, such as IMDb, Yahoo Movies, Fandango, Flix, Hulu, etc. This averages out to an overall audience reaction, despite idiots who give everything they see one star or those who give everything they see "all" stars. This rapid response medium spreads the word so fast that after just a day or two of release, I can see that hundreds or even thousands of people have averaged a movie to 4 stars out of 10, and that means I should steer clear of it.

(Obviously it didn't work with me this time because I'm one of those rare persons who doesn't pay much attention to the opinions of others.) The cost of distributing a movie to the theater is ENORMOUS. It is harder to distribute a movie to a US theater than it is to raise millions of dollars to produce it in the first place. With Blu-Ray on the rise, and the increasing popularity of using the internet to stream movies, theatrical distribution is riskier than ever.

I suppose the distributor of Creature figured the time was ripe. It's the second deep-south swamp horror to come out this month, the other being Shark Night, which was marginally better (but not a good bet either). I suppose they were inspired by the surprise success of Piranha 3D, which had a lot of star cameo power, a lot of gore, a lot of nudity, and a lot of fun. All Creature had was a little nudity, and that's just not enough. The plot was confusing, the characters were ridiculously unbelievable, and the creature costume was even worse than Swamp Thing 20 years ago.

Seriously, guys. College students can make a better film than this.

Another movie about backwoods freaks preying on unsuspecting young travelers usually visiting, passing thru, or detained. In this movie they are traveling thru Loisiana to the city of New Orleans. And the backwoods freaks this time are a bunch of people who've made a pact with a "Gatorman"; part man, part alligator. This pact is steeped in religion and appears cultish. They give Gatorman what he wants and he gives them what they need. What he wants is tender, sweet, female flesh for dinner and sex. In return, he gives his worshipers what they need. Perpetuation; continuity. The cult are bred or born from incestuous sex; the women of which are sacrificed regularly to Gatorman (I'm only the messenger, folks).

Legend has it that circa 19th century, the Boteen (spell check) family, who lived reclusively deep in the swamps, were concerned about their lineage because their family tree was thinning out due to sterility. You know the saying: "Desperate situations call for desperate measures"? --Well it was up to 2 Boteens, Caroline and Grimley, who were brother and sister to save the Boteens from extinction. On the eve of their wedding, while they were frolicking on the swamps filled with love and anticipation of their union, a white gator rose up from the swamps and took Caroline. Grimley goes after her, finds the animals larder, but she's already dead. He kills the gator, but is overcome by grief and goes mad. He begins to consume the gators store of human remains (including sister Caroline) and "Gatorman" --who looks like a cross between a linebacker, a gorilla, and a reptile-- is born.

After seeing an old flier made for tourists daring them to go to Grimeley's old home in the swamps and directions to get there from a storekeeper, six young people, 3 guys and 3 girls, decide to make a side trip from their journey to visit the old house of legend (I think we agree, reader, that this can't be good). This movie is not a bad entry into the "Backwoods Freaks" genre. But instead of some psycho with a love for sharp things and torture after you, this time it's a Gatorman aided by a religious inbred cult. I would say that action and story-wise, it's fair. I did have a little problem with the way the lead in this movie took a bullet and didn't even limp after. As well, he got a pummeling from Gatorman that should have (in my opinion) broken every bone in his body. Bit of credibility lost there, I think. Still, if you understand that these type of movies are what they are; that they can often be a bit amateurish (some of the writing and directing here; the acting was okay) and a bit exploitive (some nudity with the violence in this one) and that they are designed strictly for entertainment and revenue, then most likely you would accept this entry into the Backwoods Freak genre as a fair one. Love, Boloxxxi.

I could tell this movie was going to be great when we walked into the theater and no one else was there. I had expected it to be awful from the get go, but it surprised me by also being completely nonsensical. What looks like a typical "monster eats a bunch of teens in the woods" movie is actually much more convoluted. Throughout, I couldn't shake the feeling that this had started off as a kinky softcore porn that accidentally mutated into a horror movie somewhere along the way. While the breasts all gave a moving performance, the rest of the cast left something to be desired. Of course, that could have just been the weird script. There should have been subtitles for the 40% of the dialogue that was delivered in fake Cajun accents, but what we could understand didn't make things any clearer. I mean, yeah, we got the gist of it, but we just kept asking why. Why did anyone do anything that they did in this film? I guess it's up to the viewer to decide. Audience participation!

I have no idea what the writer and director had on their minds when they set this baby up, but I'm pretty sure I can tell you what they didn't: logic, character development, timing, or continuity. If you love bad horror movies like I do, you might enjoy this, but honestly we spent more time being confused than laughing. Plus I kept waiting for it to stop beating around the bush and just turn into Deliverance 2 already, but it never did.

I want my 1.5hr back. Have never felt the need to criticize before, but this one takes the cake. Worst film of the year! The creature in CREATURE is some guy in a silly plastic mask. Kill scenes contain virtually no gore. It wasn't even fun watching the poor characters getting killed. I mean, what is the sense of watching something like this anyway. Total waste of time!

Gratuitous sex/nudity was alright. Nothing special. More sex in recent remake of Piranha, not to mention way MORE gore. Want a better movie? - Watch that one instead. If you want to waste your time watching a really bad movie, then watch this one. Pacing of movie was also terrible. No suspense whatsoever. Lots of chatter and very little substance.