Creature from the Black Lagoon [HD]

Horror classic with unforgettable Universal monster
"Creature From The Black Lagoon" would have to go down as one of the classic titles of the 1950's horror/Sci Fi genre. Too often dismissed as drive-in fodder, this film is a real classic and is a film which grows more on me with each screening. Indeed I find more to like about this production all the time. It's enduring popularity is a great testimony to its excellent production values, good acting, intelligent storyline, and the real claustrophobic atmosphere it engenders.

"Creature" also boosts one of the most memorable of Universal's great gallery of classic monsters in the form of the Gillman superbly realised by the genius of designer Bud Westmore. Coming quite late in the long tradition of Universal monsters the Gillman is right up there with such memorable creations as Dracula, Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein and The Wolfman. He was to return to the screen in two sequels "Revenge Of The Creature" and "The Creature Walks Among Us" however it is for this original effort...

The Gillman Still Entertains Just Swimmingly
Though it features the weakest of the classic Universal monsters, THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON is still a first-rate horror film. Two decades before Steven Spielberg's JAWS made us fearful about swimming too far beyond the beach, this classic movie made us believe that something weird and evil could be lurking below the water's surface.

The story revolves around a scientific expedition in the Amazon jungle. Spurred by the recent discovery of a strange fossil, the scientists hope to find evidence of what may be the "missing link" between humans and the first of our ancestors to have crawled up out of the sea. Then, while collecting rocks and fossils from the bottom of a sequestered little lagoon, they unwittingly intrude upon the lair of the titular creature, a fish-like humanoid--or "gillman"--who just might be a living example of the fossils they seek.

Unlike the other rubber-suit monsters in B-grade horror flicks from the 1950s, the eponymous...

Classic Creature
They don't get any better than this: my favorite film "monster." The last word is quoted because like the other great "monsters" (The Phantom of the Opera, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Frankenstein monster, King Kong), they are really sympathetic, misunderstood beings. In "Creature" and the 2 excellent sequels, we increasingly feel for the Creature, who longs to love, but only gets intruded upon, burned, harpooned, caged, probed, shocked, vivisected, shot at, all in the name of science. It's a trilogy that improves with age, with the beautifully designed 'Creature' costume a landmark. Julie Adams and Richard Carlson play sympathetic scientists (she asks "will he live?" after the Creature is drugged and banged on, he stops the men from continually shooting the Creature at climax), while Richard Denning is cast as a "big-game hunter" type who ultimately gets his. The famous underwater scene with the exquisite, dark-haired, beauteous Adams in a stunning...

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