Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

Reviewed by Matt
Posted on July 30, 2005
Filed Under Black and white, Monsters

One of the later entries into Universal’s series of horror / monster movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon is largely just another variation of the well-worn ‘beauty and the beast’ premise mined by many other films, most notably King Kong (nasty scary monster falls in love with pretty girl; monster kidnaps girl; men hunt down monster). But whilst it doesn’t have anything vastly original to say - and lacks a knock-out performance from a Karloff or a Lugosi - it’s still a fabulously visual piece of work, with spades of atmosphere and some great design.

The film was originally made and released in 3-D, but thankfully director Jack Arnold choose not to constantly throw things towards the camera in order to show of this gimmick; instead, he concentrates his efforts on the absolutely sumptuous underwater photography. Pretty much every water scene is beautifully framed, and many of Arnold’s shots have been imitated / ripped off by other aquatic films, most notably Jaws (where Spielberg very liberally helps himself to the scenes of Julia Adams swimming, unaware of the monster below her). Whereas much underwater filming of this period was content to merely dip the camera in and show a few fish, Arnold really captures the expansive beauty of the eponymous lagoon, imbuing it with as much atmosphere as, say, Dracula’s castle or Frankenstein’s lab. Unfortunately, the ear-shreddingly histrionic score frequently counteracts his sterling work, as if the studio were worried about the lengthy, dialogue-free underwater scenes and decided to fill them with as many chattering strings as possible to keep people interested.

As with most Universal pictures, the Bud Westmore’s creature design is both brilliant and iconic. The level of detail to it means it never once looks cheap, and every part of its look and movement has clearly been designed to match the concept (the missing link between man and fish) in every way possible. On land, he walks like a man but in a sort of plodding, flopping, fish-out-of-water way, his mouth constantly opening and closing through gasping. In the water, he moves beautifully, really giving a sense that this is where he belongs - one of the benefits of having a professional diver play the part. In the grand Universal tradition, he carries an equal mixture of menace and pathos, and his eventual death is quite agonising.

The film has some problems with pacing; having been alerted to the creature’s impending kidnap of the girl by the blurb on the back of the DVD, I was disappointed that it was crammed into the last few minutes, as the scenes leading up to this moment are a tad repetitive. The rest of the characters themselves are stock expedition movie types, all taking things terribly seriously and patronising the token girl. For this reason, it lacks the humanity of some of Universal’s other monster movies; but even if by the studio’s standards it’s more of a first division film to Frankenstein or The Invisible Man’s premier league, it still set the bar very high for hundreds of other sea-monster movies and stands up very well as a popcorn movie today.