Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon is a fairly straight-forward horror film, but even sixty-five years later, it still works.

The movie plays on the fear of the unknown creature. Deep in the Amazon Rainforest, there might be some kind of ancient, half-fish-half-man horror that sets out to kill all humans who come into its territory. Maybe it even wants to steal away the women to continue living. That's a scary thought, in and of itself.

When you add that to the movie's best quality, the score, it makes for some truly chilling, truly tense scenes. The whole film is well done, especially for 1954. The set design is fully believable, and the acting is solid all around. Julie Adams specifically does a great job. Even gill-man's costume was relatively well done, especially for the time.

We didn't come here to fight monsters, we're not equipped for it.

Out of Universal Pictures, Creature from the Black Lagoon is directed by Jack Arnold, and stars Richard Carlson, Julia Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno, and Whit Bissell. The eponymous creature was played by Ben Chapman on land and Ricou Browning for the underwater scenes. The cinematography is by William E. Snyder and the score is composed by a trio of men, Henry Mancini, Hans J. Salter & Herman Stein. The story sees a scientific expedition at the top end of the Amazon encounter a Devonian Period amphibious creature. As the creature starts to defend its turf by attacking members of the expedition, in fighting begins to take a hold as the men argue about the best cou...

'Creature from the Black Lagoon' is an entertaining flick from 1954.

For a film made so long ago, it really does age nicely. Sure some of the ways used to bring the creature to life look a little dorky in patches, but for the most part I felt the required creepiness - especially via the creature's face. It has the feel of a very well made production, which is little surprise given it's a Universal production of course. I also like how it has a sense of knowledge to it, who knows if it all adds up but it sounds the part at least.

I enjoyed the cast, they all work well together onscreen. Richard Carlson, Julie Adams and Richard Denning are naturally the standouts, though I also found Nestor Paiva to be decent. Interesting to note that t...