Creature seems to have brought in numerous
poor reviews, but I actually quite enjoyed the film. The storyline is alright,
and the swampy setting of Louisiana is creepy enough in itself. There’s
something about stereotypical backwoods folks and deep south swamps that make a
good setting for all kinds of strange things to happen.
Like several entertaining horror movies, a
group of friends finds themselves on a roadtrip, only to be enamored by a local
legend of a creature named Lockjaw. Naturally, making a foray into the swamp to
further investigate this creature, set up camp, drink booze, smoke weed and
have sex seems like a good idea. Again,
pretty familiar themes in horror films, but this familiarity makes some films
enjoyable (and others a little too cliché). Creature isn’t a difficult film to
predict for the majority of the runtime. Lockjaw himself turns out to be a
little cheesey looking, which I didn’t mind as it seemed like a bit of
throwback to horror films of decades past. Although this was probably due to
budget constrictions, it reminded me of a less well-done version of a creature
such as Pumpkinhead.
While there a few places where the
backstory and plot could use a little strengthening, Creature has a few unexpected
twists for your typical monster horror film. Sid Haig makes an appearance in
the film as one of the orchestrators of a plot to keep Lockjaw’s lineage going,
and he plays the role well. One would probably expect no less as Haig always
manages to play a good sociopathic creep. Many of the special effects in the
film might be a little lame for audiences used to big budget, recent horror
films but again, they reminded me of effects found in some of the eighties and
early nineties classics. Creature’s ending even throws in a few twists that are atypical for a pretty predictable horror movie. While it certainly isn’t a
brilliant film, I found Creature to be a very enjoyable flick to watch, full of
creepy backstories, creepy characters, a creepy setting, a weird enough
monster, and a nice amount of gore.
Worth Watching: Probably
