When it comes to horror movies, “Creature from the Black Lagoon” is one of the most iconic horror movies ever made. However, for whatever reason, I’d managed to live almost 40 years on this earth without having ever watched it. That all changed though on Sunday when I watched it for the first time ever.
A couple of years ago, I added this movie to my “life list” after seeing it on a couple of “best of” lists. In January 2010, Fangoria magazine included it on its famous list of “300 Best Horror Films.” Also, in Stephen King’s 1981 book, “Danse Macabre,” King included “Creature from the Black Lagoon” on his list of his favorite horror movies.
Released in February 1954, “Creature from the Black Lagoon” was directed by Jack Arnold and the cast included Richard Carlson, Julie Adams, Richard Denning, Antonio Moreno and Nestor Paiva. The creature was played by two actors – Ben Chapman on land and Ricour Browning in the water.
The movie is relatively short and mundane by today’s standards. It’s less than 1-1/2 hours long and is rated G. My two young kids watched it, and didn’t even flinch. I’m guessing that the typical episode of “Spongebob Squarepants” is probably scarier now than “Creature from the Black Lagoon.”
For those of you who haven’t seen this movie, it begins when a scientist finds a fossilized claw that features webbed fingers in the Amazonian jungle. He leaves to recruit a teams of scientists to study the find, but when he returns, the people he left behind have been brutally killed. Some think a jaguar killed them, but others aren’t so sure.
The team of scientists tries to uncover the remainder of the creature’s skeleton but don’t have any luck. They then come up with the idea that the cliff containing the skeleton must have slipped into the river and washed downstream years ago. They follow the river to the end, all the way to the Black Lagoon.
When they get there, they find more than they’ve bargained for. Not only do they find a bunch of old fossils, but one by one, they begin to get picked off by a humanoid fishman. They battle him on and off throughout the remainder of the film, shooting him with spearguns and rifles as he attempts to block their escape from the lagoon. In the end, the scientists narrowly escape with their lives.
I was pleasantly surprised by the overall quality of this black and white film. I intentionally tried not to read up on it before watching it, so much of it caught me by surprise. Now that I’ve watched the whole thing, I have a better appreciation of the impact it’s had on popular culture over the years, and I can see why it's so popular.
In the end, how many of you have seen “Creature from the Black Lagoon”? What did you think about it? Did you like it or not? Let us know in the comments section below.
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