Creature from the Black Lagoon

Just for fun, I ordered Creature from the Black Lagoon on DVD from Netflix. It's a well-known movie that's probably never watched anymore. It comes to us from 1954, the same year that gave us On the Waterfront, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and The Caine Mutiny. More on mutinies later. If CFTBL wasn't the scariest movie of the year, then Rear Window certainly was. That movie still frightens the piss out of me.

Actors you've heard of: None, zero. At least none I've ever heard of.

It's very short, only eighty minutes long. For any monster movie made fifty years ago, people watching today might tend to scoff at the special effects or how fake the creature looks. But here's what they did well: When the creature is on land, its mouth opens and closes constantly, like a fish's would underwater. There's a very well done "synchronized swimming" scene, where the love interest girl is going for a swim, and the creature follows her underwater. The special features call it a "pas de deux", which is a nice way of putting it. There's also a very impressive underwater struggle scene between the creature and one of the expedition members. The music is very dramatic and the monster theme gets repeated over and over and over and over.

Also, the filmmakers do a good job of depicting mood and emotion in the creature. It's a guy in a rubber suit, and there's zero facial expression. But with body language and music and the way things are shot, we get a way of inferring what's going on in the creature's mind.

One picky note: the "scientists" make the comment that the Devonian period was 150 million years ago. Technically incorrect. The Devonian was much longer ago, between 416 and 359 million years ago. The Jurassic Period was just ending its run 150 million years ago. For those of you who are interested, we're currently in the Quaternary Period of the Cenozoic Era.

It's actually a lot better movie than I expected. If it's on late at night sometime, put down the remote and watch for a while.