Review of Revenge of the Creature (1955) by Roy C — 04 Jul 2010

The film begins back in the same lagoon where the creature was left at the end of the last film. The same local captain has agreed to take some idiots from America to capture the creature. Now considering how scared this captain was and how he lost several crew members in the last film, it's amazing that he'd once again take such a risk--especially since all he does is complain about this! Quite surprisingly, the monster is actually captured relatively quickly and most of the film actually takes place in and around Marineland in Florida (near St. Augustine). Seeing this "thing" in a giant aquarium as gawking stand about is a bit surreal, but once he escapes (a must for the film), things heat up considerably.

Along for the ride are a behavioral scientist (John Agar) and the requisite "babe", the hot grad student and ichthyologist played by Lori Nelson. Both of them work with the creature trying to determine its intelligence and trainability--though the methods did seem a bit cruel. So, when the Creature breaks free, I found myself rooting for it--a real plus in a monster film when you have sympathy for the object of so much terror.

As for Agar, he has a terrible reputation as an actor, but he was quite competent here.

There are a couple of things viewers might want to look out for. First, it's pretty obvious that there are two different people playing the Creature if you try to spot the differences. In the underwater scenes, the guy inside this complex suit is skinnier and on land he's chunkier--perhaps so he can carry about the "screaming hot babe" required by such films. Second, it's also pretty obvious that this was originally a 3-D film---as the monster and arms and all kinds of stuff come hurtling at the camera. While it isn't hokey, it is noticeable.

Overall, a nice higher budget horror film that excels in practically every way. The only negatives are that it's a sequel (in other words, it loses a point for originality) and occasionally the characters do act a bit dumb--but this can be forgiven since it's still a vastly superior film to the sort of schlock horror that was so common in the 50s.