Creature - Die Legende vom Monster aus dem Sumpf

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.

Let's face it. In a movie like CREATURE, it's all about... well, the creature. Who in this universe would watch this looking for fascinating characters, scintillating dialogue, or Fellini-esque direction?

No one.

So, is the titular terror a good use of latex? Yes! Lockjaw is a hulking, well-designed monstrosity of the first order. He / it looks great lumbering through the swampland in search of nosy young people.

Speaking of humans, they're your typical annoying twenty-somethings, as well as some inbred hillbilly types. Along for the ride are Pruitt Taylor Vince and the magnificent Sid Haig!

Yep, this one's for monster nuts only...

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.

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.

I've always been a fan of blood, gore and guts. I would watch anything that fell under the genre of Horror. I've seen all the Friday the 13ths, Nightmare on Elm Streets, and Halloweens; I've seen all the Jeepers/Creepers, Texas Chainsaw Massacres, and Saws; and I've watched most of the classic Dracula, Frankenstein, Wolfman, Invisible Man and Creature from the Black Lagoon movies. Some of my all-time favorite Horror films have been the less mainstream films though; such as Killer Klowns from Outer Space and the cult classic Evil Dead. When I was asked if I was interested in passes to see a screening of Creature, I couldn't resist. I'd seen a trailer for the movie and knew that it was definitely a "low-budget" film; and with low-budget films comes low expectations.

Using a budget of approximately $3,000,000, an extremely small amount by Hollywood standards), Fred Andrews III makes his directorial debut. The most notable actor in Creature is horror film stalwart Sid Haig, mostly known for playing Captain Spaulding in the movies House of 1000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects. Sadly, Haig basically just plays a dumbed down version of Spaulding and sadly his is extremely underutilized because he's the best thing in the movie. The "creature", if you will, is not a computer generated image but is merely someone wearing a costume; similar to the way it was done back in the "good old days." Regrettably the comparison to the "good old days" stops there. Yes, there's the nudity, and quite a bit more than the standard gratuitous, there's pot smoking and drunkenness; but, the shock factor is lacking. The kill scenes show very little gore…if any at all. The characters are underdeveloped, giving you no one to relate to or to root for. The witty humor is dull and the dialogue isn't much better. There really isn't much that actually works.

Grade: F

visit our site at www.twodudereview.com