'Revenge' of the Creature


Alright, so I absolutely love the first Creature film. It had elements way ahead of its time and was very enjoyable all the way through. You can't help but smile every time at some of the great shots in the first, especially those with his webbed hands reaching out.

But compared to the first, this one is absolute trash. First off, all of the atmosphere? Gone. Good old Gill gets placed in a sterile, lame tank for the majority of the film. This also takes away from the opportunity for good scare scenes, or even attacks at all. The one attack where he tries to steal the woman and rips the guy's mask off is a highlight, but scenes like this are few and far between. Instead, the Gill Man is kidnapped from his home, chained up in a small tank, and constantly shocked with a prod and hurt. After he leaves captivity and tries to get back at the people who did that to him, he gets shot. Not a whole lot of "revenge" going on. And even after all of this, if he'd have had his revenge in the end in a satisfying way it would have been fine, but most of the satisfaction in the final scene comes from the single shot where he flips over the car.

With most everything that made the first film great gone, what's left? A bad love story between two unlikable characters. I'm not the kind to bash a 50s movie for having 50s values, but am I seriously supposed to get pulled into this love story that's just one shallow scene after another? The woman is not even a character, as the movie itself puts it, she's just the "pretty young scientist" and is completely ditzy despite her supposed level of education to fit with the female standard. I wouldn't even complain about this if it had been on the sideline to more than a small handful of actual horror moments, but it really seems like the main story here and it's a shame.

At best I can give it a 6/10 because I love the creature too much to bash his movie, but that's being generous.

Other opinions are welcome, I wouldn't mind hearing what someone who liked it had to say as long as they can back up what they're saying.

It's not over, everybody betrayed me! I'm fed up with this world!

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I agree.

"I had to rescue a burning baby. See, I got burning baby all over me."
- CHEECH

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I'll just bring up one point about the female lead - I think you're being too harsh in viewing the film through today's societal lenses. The vast majority of 1950s scifi films featured female leads that were there only to be threatened by the monster and/or look pretty.

Lori Nelson fulfilled the basics of that role well. Granted, the writing of her dialogue was not up to snuff with comparable films from the same era.

Contrast the one solid exception to this trope - Patricia Neal in "Them". Very strong female lead for the time. A distant second might be Mara Corday in "Tarantula", also directed by Jack Arnold.

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Honestly I don't agree with you. My issue isn't with who she is as a character so much as the emphasis placed on her character. Like I said, I can't blame a 50s movie for having 50s values, I wasn't looking at it in comparison to modern standards for the focus of that point, all I'm trying to say is that they spent way too much time on this bogus love story when it should have only been a handful of scenes maximum given the complete lack of any depth. Even if it had depth.... No ones watching a creature movie for the love sub plot....

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Contrast the one solid exception to this trope - Patricia Neal in "Them".

Ummm...Patricia Neal was not in "Them". Perhaps you are thinking about "The Day the Earth Stood Still"?

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You're right, but I was thinking of Joan Weldon.

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I loved how the emergency news broadcast stated, "All emergency equipment is being mobilized at Point Diego, where the bodies of two students, victims of the gill man, were found. So far, there's been no trace of Miss Helen Dobson, the pretty young scientist kidnapped by the monster." I wonder, would the broadcaster have said "the dumpy middle-aged scientist" if Helen had not been young and pretty?

Life's a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!

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Such fun!

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