{"id":2002,"date":"2012-03-21T19:07:51","date_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:07:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=2002"},"modified":"2012-03-21T19:07:51","modified_gmt":"2012-03-22T01:07:51","slug":"creature","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bmovienation.com\/?p=2002","title":{"rendered":"Creature"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nStraddling the thick line between SyFy Channel Original Movie and theatrical release quality comes Creature, a film perhaps best described as \u201cthe typical redneck cultist half-man\/half-alligator movie.\u201d Oh sure, it sounds kind of unique on paper (if \u201ckind of unique\u201d is even possible), but the film plays out like a myriad other straight to video schlock films, filled with clich\u00e9, archetypes and muted gore. For a straight to video release, Creature would be likely to turn heads as a comparatively smart, nicely produced and rather enjoyable B-movie entertainment. Unfortunately, Creature was released in theaters, a location which ratchets standards up a few notches and making Creature pale by comparison to bigger productions. It\u2019s heartening that someone had this much confidence in a low-budget monster movie, but that faith is wholly misplaced.<\/p>\n

This events of Creature begin as all straight to video horror movies must, with a group of attractive young people on a road trip. A trio of young Marines, just out of the service, are motoring through the backwoods of the American South with two girlfriends and a sister, who acts a lot like a girlfriend. This actress\u2019s name is Jennifer Schneider, and aside from known B-movie quantities like Sig Haig and Pruitt Taylor Vince, she\u2019s the only cast member to make a lasting impression with a fun, sexy performance that revels in her character\u2019s likeable sleaziness. Along the way these kids run into a roadside attraction run by Haig, playing up a local legend of an inbred hillbilly who turned into half-man\/half-alligator creature and now supposedly scours the swamps in search of blood and brides. In the grand old horror movie tradition, the time has come to say, \u201cLet\u2019s check it out!\u201d<\/p>\n

I have decided, in my travels, to never, ever check anything out. I\u2019m struggling to think of a single occasion in which \u201cLet\u2019s check it out\u201d led to anything positive, like nubile orgies or even the best bagel stand in town. It usually leads to the situation we find in Creature, where a group of youngsters find themselves isolated in an unforgiving terrain, beset on all sides by hicks who want to present their monster god with fertile young lasses to impregnate. But while in real life I\u2019d probably have no interest in playing along with this sort of behavior, in motion picture form Creature presents the scenario with humor and some creativity, and a lot more incest that you\u2019re probably used to outside of \u201cGame of Thrones.\u201d<\/p>\n

That level of, as director Fred Andrews calls it, \u201cookiness\u201d lends Creature a more distinctive feel than most of its genre brethren, which shy away from actual ideas in favor of genre mashups and high concept titles like Mansquito. Andrews\u2019 film revels in its playful presentation of cultish backwoods shenanigans, although it fails to properly explain what the hell is going on. By the film\u2019s quasi-twist ending, we\u2019ve figured out basically what Haig & Co. were up to, but their motivations are so vague and unexplored throughout most of the running time that we\u2019re forced to fall back on familiar conventions of running through the woods, calling out girlfriends\u2019 names and fighting a guy in a big rubber suit. All those elements are capably presented but so by the numbers that you\u2019d think they were plotted out on an abacus. It\u2019s the film\u2019s ookiness that makes Creature stand out. It even dares to make the prevailing incestuous subplots play off as a little sexy sometimes. Gross, certainly, but you have to applaud a horror movie for actually playing off audience discomfort rather than rely on cheap \u201cBoo\u201d scares all the time.<\/p>\n

Although Creature slightly raises the bar for straight to video entertainment (and pretty much lowers it for theatrical releases), there\u2019s no denying that the DVD-only release, available this week, is something of a disappointment. The transfer highlights the film\u2019s glowing, unrealistic greens and offers a fair amount of detail, but the special features are non-existent, which is a shame considering that Andrews has a gorier director\u2019s cut out there somewhere, and probably could have provided an intriguing commentary track about the movie\u2019s curious obsessions. Monster movie fans will find Creature comforting, but casual horror movie enthusiasts will probably find little reason to seek it out.