Criaturas

Who else might combine aliens, zombies and furry little gremlins? The acting and camerawork in this film aren't bad, but everything else is, especially the story itself, along with the editing, which lacks the timing that might have make it work as a "so bad it's good" movie- it's not. Save your hour (or however much you could take) for something better. Pretty much anything.

Bad acting.

Bad effects.

Bad script.

The only way it would be redeemable would be if it was submitted as a remedial student's film project.

If you want to watch how a low budget B grade alien invasion movie should be done watch Peter Jackson's "Bad Taste".

This movie is perfect if you just want to watch something light and nonsensical and are generally in the mood for something so bad it's good. Definitely do not watch it if you're not into watching bad movies for fun and don't expect it to always make sense. The blinking of the aliens can get on one's nerves, the first ten times it's alright but after that you really want them to just stop. The characters are of course stupid and stereotypical and you don't have to be a genius to know who's gonna die, but you probably wouldn't watch the movie expecting there to be well-written characters or characters that aren'tjust meant to be cannonfutter.

A movie about aliens that turn humans into zombies sounds just crazy enough to potentially be fun. But the execution is rather poor and the characters are not very well developed or likable. So I really didn't find myself caring if they were killed off or not. In fact I actually wanted most of them to be offed.

For example, the story begins with a bus full of university students on a field trip to observe meteorites. Most of them are jerks who act like they don't even want to be there. Several of them are relentlessly making fun of another student for being Mexican. Yes they're literally making fun of someone for their race/national origin. Who does that? Shamelessly right in front of everyone at that. Most of the students either participate or raise no objections. I'm no SJW but it struck me as quite bizarre.

I don't fault the movie for the cheesy special effects, because that can actually be part of the charm for many B movies. There were even a few scenes that made me laugh, especially the projectile hedgehog scene. My problem is that the writing was quite bad and random stuff would happen that didn't make any sense. None of the characters had any sort of consistent personality. They would do baffling things with no apparent logic or motive. Story elements are introduced without ever being fleshed out.

With this type of movie one must strike a balance between being comedically farcical and just plain bad. This didn't quite deliver for me but it is watchable, if barely. 4/10 (seems like a star for each time I chuckled, Lol)

Granted, I must admit that I was expecting a tad more from the 2021 horror comedy titled "Creatures" than what director Tony Jopia actually managed to deliver.

Now, don't get me wrong here, because "Creatures" is certainly a watchable movie, by all means. But that was about it, it was just watchable. "Creatures", as written by writers Andrew Fawn, Stu Jopia and Tony Jopia was just a mediocre storyline. Sure it had potential to be more than it was, but it just failed to deliver where it mattered.

Perhaps it was the amazingly bland character gallery in the movie. I didn't care one bit for any of the characters, and in fact if you were to ask me right now what the names of the characters were, I couldn't tell you. And I just finished watching the movie. I swear, I wouldn't be able to tell you a single name without cheating and looking it up on IMDb.

"Creatures" is an alien movie, and as such you would want to have good, or at the very least fair, creature effects to carry the movie. I must say that the portrayal and showcasing of the creatures in "Creatures" was a mixed affair. Sure, the small furry creature was nicely made and looked cute, but the alien creatures hunting it, now they were a different issue all together. Some of the scenes were God awful to look at, where the CGI was just an eyesore. But then other scenes, where they used dolls or puppets actually worked out well enough.

The acting performances in the movie were adequate. I wasn't familiar with anyone on the cast list, nor can I point out a single actor or actress and say that his or her performance was the best in the movie.

I was not particularly entertained by "Creatures", but I managed to endure it to the end. The whole movie just felt somewhat pointless, to be bluntly honest.

My rating of "Creatures" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.