Fred Andrew’s new schlocker Creature (2011) features Mehad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Dillon Casey, Lauren Schneider, Aaron Hill and Amanda Fuller, as six young people out for a weekend of fun in the Louisiana swamps. Unfortunately they have chosen the wrong place to vacation and after Chopper (Sid Haig) a local gas station owner tells them the legend of a crocodile man who feeds on unwary travelers, the kids decide to search out the creature for themselves with predictably gruesome results.
There was something innocent about the age of video nasties - those sleazy frightfests which normally featured nubile teenagers taking part in illicit sex at some lakeside retreat of their parent’s empty house and coming to a sticky and usually unnecessarily gory end as a result. Generally, though not always, the reason behind the grisly retribution meted out on the unfortunate victims was because the perpetrator had been unjustly wronged and as a result their killing spree could at least be semi-understood. Scream (1996), that pastiche of all things Jason and Freddy soon put an end to any of these films having justification behind the atrocities around which they built their premises. Now all the killers were out for was a good time.
Which unfortunately brings us slap up to date with films like Creature, today’s equivalent of those teenage slasher films from the 1980’s. I won’t give too much away behind what limited plot line there is but lets just say that though the monster - who looks like a cross between Creature from the Black Lagoon’s (1954) namesake and the sharp toothed monster from Alligator (1980) - has, to an extent, an excuse for his actions, those who are behind encouraging him in his bloody exploits are just good old, inbred sickos in the best deep south American fashion.
Is there anything in the film’s favor? Well, it starts reasonably well - and I don’t mean the pre-credit Jaws (1975) ‘rip-off‘ (pardon the pun) - with the gorgeous looking all-American twenty somethings in their 4x4 heading off for their dirty weekend. However any hope there might have been soon dies like most of the cast once they stop at the first sign of civilisation (and that word is used loosely) so the girls can “go pee”! Even if you’d never seen House 1000 Corpses (2003), one look at its star Sid Haig who appears here as the redneck proprietor of the gas station where the friends stop to stretch their legs, and you would get off this highway to hell and head straight back to civilisation. Of course there wouldn’t be a story if these kids did anything half so sensible, so they walk straight into every kind of horror film cliche you can think of from searching out old deserted log cabins and camping in the woods to sex in a forest clearing - err, didn’t they ever see The Evil Dead (1981) or Cabin in the Woods (2011)? Throw in some obligatory torture porn and a smattering of girl on girl action and this unfortunate film has something for everyone.
Anyway enough already. Despite a couple or reasonable twists, by the closing credits the film and what’s left of its characters have got lost in a swamp of farfetchedness from which none escape with any degree of dignity.
Cleaver Patterson
Rating: 18 (UK)
DVD Release Date: 13th August 2012
Directed By: Fred Andrews
Cast: Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan , Daniel Bernhardt, Sid Haig
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