Creature from the Black Lagoon

B and Cult Movies Rating: 4 stars
Year of Release: 1954
Movie Certification: PG
Running Time: 75mins
Genre: Horror
Starring: Richard Carlson, Julie Adams
Director: Jack Arnold

I can tell you something about this place. The boys around here call it “The Black Lagoon”; a paradise. Only they say nobody has ever come back to prove it….

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is one of the all-time great Universal horror films, and the Creature is one of the great monsters – even to the point of being used in recent family animation MONSTERS VS ALIENS. Indeed, he is one of the few new creations in that list of villains – Dracula, The Mummy, Wolfman – and yet he can now be included as one of the greats along with them.

Following the discovery of a fossil in the Amazon, a team of scientists travel out to find the rest of the skeleton. After a couple of horrible deaths, they learn that they are not alone, and there is a Creature that lives in the lagoon. They endeavour to catch the creature, but he escapes. As the tide turns and more members of the team are killed or injured, they try to escape, only to discover that they have been trapped. This ultimately leads to the showdown and climax of the film.

This is all fairly standard horror-stuff. However, on top of this we have some interesting relationships between our three main characters. Jealousy and a broken relationship mixed up with a much more classic hero/heroine pairing really caught my attention. These characters aren’t all as two-dimensional as I would expect in an older horror.

The Lagoon is both beautiful and menacing, reflecting the changing mood of the characters – from relaxed to aggressive and finally running scared. The film is shot beautifully, with some amazing underwater camera work. The standout moment would have to be the point at which the beautiful Julie Adams goes for a swim, and is mirrored by the Creature. It’s a simple, elegant scene, but there is so much going on. Why doesn’t the Creature attack her? Why does he mimic her? In the end all he does is touch her ankles, and then retreats – yet later in the film he is attacking characters without mercy. Could it be that the Creature isn’t a monster, but is made into one by the humans, or maybe he’s lonely and wants female company? A simple scene, indeed, but one loaded with meaning.

I believe that it’s scenes like this that, ultimately, CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is still held up as one of the great classic horrors, and why the Creature himself has endured in popular culture.

If you like classic horror films, or horror films in general – more recent films from JAWS through to the more obvious PIRANHA 3D really owe an awful lot to this film – then I highly recommend CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON. Watch it. You won’t regret it.

Review by,
Tom Roberts
Twitter – @Tom_Wookiee