I've seen references to Creature being the inspiration for the look of the amphibian man in this film. But was the older film an inspiration , or a springboard, for this story as well? When I saw Shape of Water I didn't know of the connection, but I kept thinking of that scene in CFBL where the woman was swimming in the lagoon and the creature was swimming underwater beneath her. It seemed like that particular scene was the inspiration.
shareI'd include the second Black Lagoon movie too:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0048554/
I always laughed at the Creature From the Black Lagoon as being more than silly, but one of our local theaters here, the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto shows lots of old movies and happened to have this on the bill one night.
I saw it, and it was actually kind of a fun movie. I think it was billed with one of my favorite movies of all time "The Thing From Another World". The Thing is old and the effects are not impressive at all, but it is a wonderful movie in the action and relationships, dialog, characterizations and cinematography.
The Thing is a classic. Overlapping dialogue was a bold move at the time. (I wonder if Spielberg, who uses that technique a lot, was influenced by this film.) A great film.
Creature From the Black Lagoon is also a classic on a slightly different level.
CFBL is inspiration, that should be clear. I went into the theater without much more knowledge of the story than that. I was kind of hoping it would take that iconic image of the creature walking away with the girl and we get to see the rest of the story -- and so we do, in a strange sort of continuation of the story.
The story continuation soured quickly with a few side plots that added nada to the story, save for some political string pulls at SJW ideas. Sure fine whatever, but maybe make them integral to the story.
Overall story was immature and basic. Really. College freshman trying but not really pulling it off. No break through moments, violence and loud sounds to wake up the audience lulled into a dream like state, ie asleep. Pointless Russians, really, why, what did they serve to the plot, other than some gross violent moment near the end - ugh.
Didn't like it, check the time 3 times to see if we were getting close to the end, was disappointed 2 times...
DVD at best - Oscar really needs to shape up and stop watering down the noms -- see what i did there.
The amphibian man in this film was captured in South America, as Michael Shannon’s character says. “Creature From The Black Lagoon” was set in... South America. Coincidence or simply a homage? Hmm. Del Toro did call his film an unofficial sequel to CFTBL, so that oughtta tell you something as well. He said something to the effect that he wished to see the creature get the girl this time.
Btw (heads up: fairly political response against certain critics), whining about this film being SJW? Typical. Evidently the 50’s white guy crowd (don’t necessarily have to be white or male—it’s a mentality) applies this term to anything that offends their world views. Oh, dare to accurately depict power+war hungry bigots that existed back then and certainly do now? And they happen to be Caucasian males? Why make us look bad? You’re showing reality and pretending to be the good guys by spreading messages of equality, unity, and taking a stand against those at the top laughing at u.... stop it you weak, immature commie libs!
Sissies....