Creature (2011)

 

Creature (2011)

 

directed by:  Fred Andrews

starring:  Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Dillon Casey, Lauren Schneider, Aaron Hill, Amanda Fuller, Wayne Pére, David Jensen, Sid Haig

Tagline:  It Feeds On You

Format:  Netflix Streaming

(out of 5)

 

 

 

 

 What great potential this film had.  Good story-line with a mythological back swamp creature, decent acting all around, Sid Haig, and fx that did the job for the most part...and then the end happens.  Yes I'm sorry to say that for me this is an end ruins all type of film.  The end of a movie is a very big deal, mess it up and you've messed up basically the whole film in most cases for me.  The first Nightmare On Elm Street is a prime example in my opinion.  Great film until the very end happens which is why when you set the complete set of Nightmare movies down in front of me I will always pick Part 2:  Freddy's Revenge over one anyday...or any of the other sequels for that matter.  Anyway these kinds of jackass mistakes have a lot of impact on whether or not I'm going to rewatch a movie and while some people out there don't rewatch a lot of films, I do.
     On to what I liked.  Within ten minutes you get a woman undressing and taking a swim in the murky swamp water.  Cue the argument of people doing stupid things in movies.  You know because people never do anything stupid in reality?  And I must say for a booby scene it was very well shot, granted it was an irrelevant booby scene but well shot just the same.  Especially the shots from above the girl as she swam in the water.  Of course the young girl is eaten by what you think is a gator but then again the movie is called, "Creature" isn't it?  I think every beautiful woman in this movie gets naked.  For me throwing sex and nudity around isn't the enormous playground of delight a lot of horror fans seem to see them as but for this type of movie it certainly fit very well.  While there may have been gratuitous amounts of nudity the sex scenes were rather short-lived which is good for me because I find that almost no filmmaker shoots them right.  Sorry it just bores the shit out of me if I want a porno I'll rent one.

   The acting in this creature feature was alright or decent at best but I wasn't really looking for Oscar performances anyway.  They all did their jobs very well and especially Mehcad Brooks, Aaron Hills, and Amanda Fuller.  Brooks seemed to be showcasing his muscles all through the film but you gotta have something for the ladies to look at too.  Amanda Fuller was by far the best actress in this movie which I'm sorry to say really wasn't saying much.  I mean no one was bad here but not good either.  Sid Haig is top notch from a novelty point of view I mean people seem to worship this guy who yes was in the classic Spider Baby as well as being everyone's favorite clown from House of 1000 Corpses and Devil's Rejects but come on gimme ten more titles before I'm going to call him a "Horror Legend".  Still he was hilarious in this as usual with his rough around the edges way of taking control of his scenes.

     Also loved the story.  We have a mythological figure known as Grimley Boutine and/or Lockjaw who terrorizes a backwoods swamp community of hicks who feed the beast young women it seems and anyone else who gets in the way of obtaining that young woman.  There's a couple of plot twists thrown around and surprises I won't spoil in this review but I really enjoyed the story of the man named Grimley who lived in the swamps and was set to marry his sister since she was the only girl anywhere around, only to have her be killed by a phantom white gator.  Then he chases the gator into it's lair fights it, kills it, and begins eating the half eaten dead bodies of the gator's prey after shock sets in.  Some time goes by and Grimley mutates into Lockjaw the half human-half alligator and so begins the history of our little movie. 
     Then after all that the end happens.  One of these endings that makes no sense what-so-ever.  SPOILER ALERT:  Lockjaw is beating the life out of Niles(Brooks) who is chocking up blood, etc. when all of a sudden Niles gets a burst of unforeseen strength and energy and starts beating the creature twice his size.  He then bites it's face and throws it down a big muddy hole as if sending him to hell.  Where does it explain anywhere where this hidden strength came from?  No where.  Just throw a curveball into a film that was pretty straight-forward and needed no strange zing.   And then of course the creature comes back and drags both Niles and his girlfriend who ended up being the chosen female for the creature back down into the mud.  But wait no that's not it!  And that's all I'm saying.  Stupid idea which killed the movie for me and if I ever do watch it again it will be by accident.