Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
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Creature from the Black Lagoon Movie Review
Creature from the Black Lagoon is a 1954 science fiction horror film directed by Jack Arnold. It aged pretty well and is a solid genre flick.
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“There are many strange legends in the Amazon.
Even I, Lucas, have heard the legend of a man-fish“
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I was interested in seeing this film not only for it itself but also to witness the creature and surely Guillermo del Toro did copy the design almost to a fault for his ‘The Shape of Water’. It’s honestly ridiculous. But other than that, the two movies have nothing in common as this is more in line with horror.
The film is of course not deep nor smart at all. It lacks in both of those departments and I certainly wished for a more sophisticated story as that first act promised with its scientific analysis. But in terms of storytelling, it is actually pretty solid as it sets up its setting really well and is overall quite atmospheric and incredibly entertaining.
The characters are entirely disposable and the acting is nothing to write home about. But the film relies mostly on its creature and he truly is magnificent. He actually is pretty creepy in one scene under the boat which is the horror highlight in an otherwise not scary film. He was very well established within his swamp environment and the film is quite mysterious as not to reveal him all too early.
The design is phenomenal as the creature looks splendid hence del Toro’s willingness to copy it. This is a costume of course but the costume design is so terrific for its time that it looks pretty believable and mostly professional, especially for the fifties time frame. That costume and design helped the movie a lot in the long run.
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Creature from the Black Lagoon is too action oriented and even though I just loved its underwater sequences, they took too much of the screen time of an already very short runtime. The pacing and direction should have been better. But there is no denying that the score is strong and that the cinematography is striking and honestly beautiful and even artistic and authentic in some scenes. The film truly is original for happening mostly underwater and thus that differentiates it from all other genre films of the 50s.
Creature from the Black Lagoon is simplistic and lacking thematically speaking and in characterization, but it is a very entertaining, very well executed genre film thanks to fantastic costume design of the creature and beautifully filmed, lovely underwater sequences.
