10/18/17 – day eighteen of thirty-one days of horror!
I’ve been neglecting the Universal monsters so far this year
– I dunno, maybe I’m mad over that new Mummy movie – so it’s high time I
correct that by revisiting Universal’s greatest monster: The Creature From the
Black Lagoon. Now, I enjoy all 3 Creature movies, but I have to give John
Sherwood’s 1956 The Creature Walks Among Us props for being the strangest of
the lot, which for me carries a lot of weight. It starts with the bonkers plot:
a scientist captures the Gill Man (something that happens in all of the
movies), and this time, rather than put him on display at Sea World as they did
in Revenge of the Creature, decides that he’s going to turn our green-flippered
friend into a normal, air-breathing man, or at least as close as he can get.
The results are bizarre to say the least; the formerly lithe, amphibious creature
becomes a hulking, fish-lipped brute in a pair of pajamas, forced to stay in a
cage at the scientist’s beach-adjacent lab. To make matters worse the
no-longer-gilled man is forced to witness the endless bickering of a couple whose
marriage is on the skids, making you wonder if screenwriter Arthur A. Ross had
just taken an old unsold domestic drama script and clumsily retrofitted it to
make a monster sequel. The whole thing is both heartbreaking and hilarious, and
while not exactly a thrill-ride into terror, I do feel that this is a
must-watch for Creature completists and lovers of franchise oddities. A great
one to have on in the background of your Halloween party for the purpose of
baffling your guests!
