Creature

This movie is clearly a low-budget Alien knock-off. A hand full of explorers, comprised of a cast of television regulars, investigate Titan, one of the moons orbiting Saturn, for a life-form, that's seemingly done away with all of the previous crew that visited for the same reason. The acting is pretty much sub-standard, and the script is a case of sometimes it's so bad, it's funny, especially if you watch it late enough to grab you in a relaxed frame of mind. The ever entertaining Klaus Kinski makes a guest appearance here, albeit brief, gives this a bit of a shot in the arm, with some funny nonsensical lines and casual demeanor in what's otherwise meant to be a tense serious situation. The Creature itself is obviously a guy in a big rubber suit, but you could arguably say the same thing for Alien. The other effects in the movie are OK, with a notably gooey pumpkin head explosion in one scene. All in all, not altogether bad, but there's not enough here to sustain the 97 odd minute running time. Maybe worth catching on a slow night.

The main problem with this movie is the poor photography. It's just too dark. I'm guessing the darkness was used to hide the low budget set pieces. The other problem is slow pacing, but the decent gore keeps you watching.

The big question I had: what is Klaus Kinski doing in this thing? Just three years earlier he was in 'Fitzcarraldo'. What happened? That would be like Tom Hanks going from 'Forest Gump', to three years later starring in 'Leprechaun 4: In Space'.

I'm going to be blunt: there is nothing special enough about 'Creature' to make it memorable, or to watch it in the first place. You will be far more satisfied watching 'Lifeforce - also released in 1985, with a similar-ish premise, but far more superior. Alternatively, rather watch 'Alien' or 'Aliens'.

A Group of young scientists go on a research mission to explore an archeological find of alien origin. From the very beginning, there are authority issues between the crew members, and constant disagreement. Most of the characters are not fully explored and I found myself not rooting for any of them.

The sound - especially the dialogue - is surprisingly crisp and clear. The practical effects are rather good. The visual effects are mediocre. The lighting is exceptionally bad, making the film very dark and difficult to see at times. Even the good practical effects are shrouded in so much darkness, rendering all their hard work almost worthless.

The creature design is very bad. The creature is a lifeless blob that was difficult to see with all the darkness. One only really gets a glimpse of the creature during the film's final moments - looking a lot like a cheap rip-off of the 'Alien' creature.

'Creature' is a slasher film that follows the same recipe as almost every other alien creature feature, offering nothing new. On the contrary, it is cliched, and with the bad visuals and lighting issues, it might be best to give this one a skip entirely.

Would I watch it again? No.

Two corporations are competing to mine a 200,000 year old archaeological find on the Saturn moon Titan. The crew of the U.S. ship Shenandoah crashes on the lunar surface, only to find the Germans beat them there. But strange things are abound as the German ship is deserted except for a pesky alien. Lone survivor Hans (Klaus Kinski) tells of the horror his crew encountered from a mind controlling alien, but no one is quick enough to combat it this go around either. It's probably been about 20 years since I last saw this and this low budget production has held up really well. Director Malone is definitely trying to ape Ridley Scott's trend setter, but he ups the gore factor substantially. Malone also seems to be having fun here, as evidenced by the female lead coming up with a way to kill the creature by recalling a screening of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951). He even has a character reading a novelization of his debut feature SCARED TO DEATH (1981). The cast is good with the great Kinski doing his psycho German guy routine (shocking, right?). I wonder if he caused problems on the set as his character disappears, but then comes back zombified with clearly a double in his place.

Of course, this isn't a very good movie. In fact, it's pretty bad but I'm a whole different kind of movie-critic when I watch movies like this. Everybody needs some brainless and fun films to relax from time to time and William Malone's Creature is the perfect film for that. Creature is an shameless ripoff of Alien and it also stole several elements from John Carpenter's The Thing, but I hardly think that's a reason to ignore it completely. From the beginning of this picture you can easily point out those characters who're going to die but that's ok. You stay in your seat just to see in wich horrible ways they come to an end. These are the moments that make this film worth watching. Especially if you like a good share of blood, guts and gore. I tell you, some of the scenes are rated pretty high on the "vomit-scale". So, if you like to see heads flying around and love to see faces being ripped off...Creature is your cup of tea. All together, there are 2 major reasons to check this film out. The first one is the amazingly good musical score. I wasn't able so far to find out who made it, but I don't think they're big names in the field seeing the status of this flick. The score was a pleasant surprise and worth checking out. And last but not least... KLAUS KINSKI !! This guy is ( was...sorry ) a great actor. Without even trying he beats all the other acting-performances. Klaus clearly amused himself while playing the role of Hans Rudy Hofner and his own German accent really works here. I expected his role to be a little bigger but that's ok, the few times he's on screen are the most memorable ones. But it ain't really a big honor to be the best actor in this cast, though. All the others suck pretty bad. Wendy Schaal is very cute in her role of Beth but she can't act very well. That's ok, the girl who plays Susan can't act at all and above that she looks like David Bowie did during the 80's...and that's NOT a compliment !! I'm not even bothering to mention the rest of the cast. Oh, there is one last thing worth checking out on Creature. The very very stupid confession of Mrs. Bryce (Diane Salinger)at the end ...man, that's got to be the most ridiculous plot-twist I ever saw!! I laughed silly with that....4 out of 10