Rating: **1/2
The surprise with the new monster feature Creature has
nothing to do with the twists and turns of the story about six young people
that go site-seeing in the bayou for a legendary alligator man. It’s that you
kind of like them and hope they survive. Which is impossible, I know, but
still, one can hope. And yes, that does turn out to be a false hope.
Creature begins like half the horror movies ever made
by showing a happy-go-lucky group of hot, nubile twentysomething campers on
their way, in this case to New Orleans,
for some general debauchery. Also in typical fashion, they stop at a store in
the middle of nowhere and razz the local hicks about their love for the legend
of Lockjaw, a kind of Bigfoot with a crocodile head whose story involves
incest, grief, man-on-nature revenge and finally, cannibalism. By the time the
kids gets out to Lockjaw’s infamous cabin in the exact centre of dense of
swampland, you can already see where this is going.
I give co-screenwriter and director Fred Andrews credit, he
crafted a script where the main characters are neither broad stereotypes or
dim-wittedly unlikeable meat that you have no trouble seeing put through the
grinder. As a former production designer, I have a feeling that Andrews spent a
lot of time on sets where characterization was a low priority, and thus spent a
lot of time thinking about what his approach would be should he make a movie of
his own. It works, at least until the main story has to get rolling, and the
plot takes on the feeling of Creature from the Black Lagoon meets Deliverance.
First, the make-up job on Lockjaw is the sort that makes you
want a CG monster over a sub par prosthetic, which is too bad because from far
away and in the dark the suit is fine, but close-ups are not Lockjaw’s best
friend. The story itself could have been cast in a new light as well because
there’s a confusing mash-up of in-bred hick family values and virgin sacrifice.
Family lines are blurred and who’s a bad guy and who’s not is a game you don’t
necessarily want to play in this type of movie. When the monster’s loose, you
don’t want to cut away to see how Hee Haw does human sacrifice.
But since the actors are so engaging you play the “just go
with it game.” Mehcad Brooks (Eggs from True Blood) and Aaron Hill make
for unconventional horror leads if only because their characters, as soldiers
on leave, are proactive and capable. Dillon Casey is great as the group’s
defacto Shaggy and squeezes a lot of humour out of the part. Casey also gets
the film’s best twist of the film and plays it up very well. Serinda Swan, Amanda
Fuller, and Lauren Schneider bring the girl power, and thankfully avoid any
horror movie tropes involving whiny, screamy girlfriends who are basically
useless in these situations, but the slightly off-kilter Karen played by Schneider
is my favourite. Rob Zombie regular Sid Haig is, of course, excellent as he
effortlessly puts friendly jokster uncle and your leering creepy uncle in the
same role.
Creature may not break the mould, but I did find it
compelling enough to sit through to the end to see how it turns out. On a pure,
basic horror movie level of blood and guts, nubile young people and nudity, and
maybe a little fun beneath the goofy monster make-up, there are worse ways to
kill a couple of hours in the cinema. And on a technical filmmaking level, you
can dig the genuine bayou flavour of the movie. So much so that you’ll check
the theatre floor for snakes.
So Creatures gets an A for effort, even if it gets
lower marks for actual execution. It’s cheese, but it’s quality cheese, and in
my experience even getting that much right is difficult to achieve in modern
movies.
