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.

My reaction to hearing about Creature, "Klaus Kinski in a creature feature? Count me in, baby!" My reaction after watching Creature, "Ehhh, sh!t."

The story of Creature revolves around dueling spaceship companies (haha) who end up discovering on Saturn's moon, Titan, a creature who's been in slumber for over 2,000 centuries. That's alotta snoozin. So obviously when this creature wakes up it's gonna be hungry as hell. And low and behold it is. The crew discover that the German Spaceship Company has touched down before they have, and when they land they also learn that may have been a godsend. Because they're all dead. Well, besides Klaus. He managed to stay alive. Yay! Well, Kinksi, the romantic waitress from Pee Wee's Big Adventure and the rest of the American Spacemen are trying to figure out to get off this rock and survive the Creature's wrath while doing so.

Didn't I just make that sound awesome? No? Oh. Well, like my summary the movie isn't very awesome either. But it's not totally worthless. Klaus in his minuscule screen-time plays his part in a pretty likable way. The gore though not a lot wasn't that bad, the sets were pretty good but too dark, and the cheesy writing and decision making were enough to make you smile. The ending especially was chock full of stupidity. Anyways, all these ingredients made a decently cheesy flick. Oh, it was a tad too long as well.

I have to leave my biggest qualm (word of the day) for the end of his utterly pathetic review. The Creature was a total disappointment. By the looks of it on the cover it looks like a freak monster ant-eater type thing. And it's cool. But when it's on camera it didn't shine at all. To make matters worse here the creature may possibly be the slowest villain in history of capable villains. Jason does that slowass walk thing but he manages to keep up. This thing literally takes 2 second steps, but still it manages to keep right up. There was one scene where they had the Creature in the distance trudging forward while the guy's screaming "Hurry up!". The dude's freaking out for no reason because the creature probably made about 3 feet in all the time he was panicking.

What a stupid review, huh? Anyways, if you like Alien ripoffs, Klaus Kinski, that chick from Pee Wee's Big Adventure, little bits of nudity and gore then check out Creature.

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'.

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.

If a film that gets trashed for ripping off 'Alien' (some around that period unfairly got lumped in that rip-off category, than really just riding on the back of it success), I always see this one being mentioned and to make matters worse it also got labelled as crappy b-grade hokum. Hey I can't deny some similarities (mainly the look of the alien) and routine structure, but I thought it was agreeably fun and soundly made feature that used its budget restraints to good use. It even manages to incorporate a 'few' unique novelties, like that of victims being transformed in to parasite-infected zombies to do the bidding of its alien guest. Um, has something like this been done before?

The film looks cheap, but director William Malone (hey I might like 'Scared to Death (1982)' more) does a commendably steady job of getting plenty of moody atmospherics from the confined low-budget sets (which is murkily photographed) and enough gory splatter to keep our minds at rest. Plus at an added bonus you get the flamboyant Klaus Kinski making a scene. Who knew watching someone munching a sandwich could be so mesmerizing. A small and unusual appearance, but what a scene it was. The rest of the performances end up being stiff, but there's the familiar faces of the credible Lyman Ward and Diane Salinger. Wendy Schaal makes for a wholesome leading girl.

The premise had something good to work with, but the script (with numerous references) is a turgidly silly mess and the real sore point. It really does go on to peter out with the main interest losing out the further along it goes, as you know every single step before it hit's the screen. Despite some nasty cracks and paranoid spells, the latter half just seems to get bogged down in some banal patches. Some of the make-up FX/special effects stand-up for what it had, but the alien costume isn't all that convincing that when it figures in its full glory. You can see why it mostly stays hidden in the dark up until then.

Accessible, but strictly fundamental none-the-same.