WILLIAM ALLAND PRESENTS 'CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON'

Part of a great foreign poster from the YEAR: 1954

Several films were inspired by CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON; two in particular, and both are connected: The first X-MEN was directed by Bryan Singer ala Bad Hat Harry Productions, a homage to the movie JAWS. And when you see various underwater shots with the camera aimed up at Julia Adams swimming, it's extremely similar to the famously doomed skinny-dipper in the Steven Spielberg killer shark opus...

As is the built-in suspense of completely vulnerable characters unaware of what's directly beneath them in the water, where humans have very little control in the first place. As for X-MEN: both that and CREATURE start out with an expository lecture on Evolution, with images... Only in this case it's oddly coupled with Creation, and... well.... back in those days, the Big Bang needed explaining for how that big fuse got lit..

Signed by a Screen Queen SCORE: ***1/2

And here's a cult classic that's also a thoroughly effective classic-thriller directed by Jack Arnold, making the quest of an otherwise bland group of scientists... repeating the same mantra about a missing link fossil (albeit fish changing into man as opposed to ape changing into man, or fish into ape)... both mysterious and intriguing. Taking the horror-genre body count aspect into a spooky and murky locale where anything can happen at any time...

Visually aided by effective, non-gimmicky devices, like the Creature's hand moving slowly towards our ingenue's bare feet; or his slimy, formidable figure sleeking across a boat as viewed from an inside portal, there's far more going than creative camera angles and sudden jolts (backed by a thunderously trumpeting score)...

Even after the CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON i.e. The Creature i.e. The Gill-Man is captured, the image of him staring from a submerged cage is even more creepy and terrifying than when he's throwing grown men across the deck. Making him the most hauntingly subtle and ghoulishly effective of all Universal Monsters. For it's not only his movie, it's his territory, and he needn't take any prisoners. They simply showed up.

The CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON captured but not forgotten

The better half of the french poster for CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON