mark.waltz
The sight of the Creature From the Black Lagoon wearing a large man's shirt here brought on chuckles from me here because he reminded me so much of Boris Karloff as the monster in "The Bride of Frankenstein". The third of the Black Lagoon series is entertaining but unmemorable, a basically unnecessary third installment to a trio of films where the first is a classic, the second is quite good in spite of being a retread, and the third becomes a reminder as to why some of the old movie monster series went on far too long. It all starts with a determined young socialite (Leigh Snowden) speeding across the bridge from the Florida Keys and storming up the gang plank of a docked yacht. Snowden basically takes over the conversation from husband Jeff Morrow and scientist Rex Reason over the search for the mysterious creature which they want to experiment on to turn into a land walking creature. They don't count on the strength of this creature, at one point literally pushing their boat up with all of them on it, just with one hand. Arrows in the monster don't seem to hurt it, and neither does being doused with flames. But somehow, they get the unconscious monster to a hospital where he is put in a hospital gown and turns the facility into his own playground, basically tearing it and other locations where Snowden, Morrow and Reason hang out, to shreds.There's also a smarmy guide (Gregg Palmer) who makes a play for the monster who somehow becomes enraged at this and goes once again on another rampage. Short on story but long on rampages, this is your run of the mill science fiction/horror programmer where the plot line is overwhelmed by some pretty neat set locations (a Florida swamp is pretty impressive) and a few decent effects, nothing new, but nothing laughable either. The performances are adequate and the film is short enough to not overstay its welcome, but isn't one I'd be recommending to fans of the sci-fi/horror genre to watch in a marathon with the other two.
jadavix
"The Creature Walks Among Us" is the second sequel to the famous "Creature From the Black Lagoon". I have not seen the first sequel, "Revenge of the Creature", but I am told it also features a love triangle made of human characters and a poor gill-man (or titular "creature") on the outside of it.You probably know what to expect from this third and final installment in the "men with gills can't get girls" series of movies. If not, it's basically like this: guys capture the gill-man, keep him for a while, but the gill-man escapes. As has been noted above, the movie attempts a love triangle but doesn't really succeed at it. Wikipedia says that the characters are a crazed and paranoid doctor who is suspicious of the attention the studly guide is paying to his beautiful wife. I got that there was some sexual paranoia going on, but the bit about the doctor being crazy totally went over my head. Unfortunately none of the characters really register; I didn't get the slightest hint of a personality from any of them.Anyway, "The Creature Walks Among Us" lives up to its name with shots of the creature actually walking around, for some reason clothed in linen like a Roman emperor. These bits are amusing to look at, at least. There is also some nonsense about the creature learning to breathe air. They should have made another sequel in which they teach him to tap dance and quote Shakespeare. It could have been like an aquatic "Enigma of Kaspar Hauser".Why do they clothe the creature? He/she/it apparently has no sex organs; at least none that are visible. It seems like a cruel joke at the creature's expense. Understandable, then, that it inevitably goes on a rampage. I find it harder to swallow, however, that this is triggered by it realising it is being falsely blamed for human crime.
skinner-c
Uniquely unlike the first two Creature films, this one is set apart in its own gloom. While it seemed to have been the lowest graded version of the three, I find it in some ways the best. As the second and final "remake," it had to branch out somewhat, and I believe it did so with merit and credibility.Shadowed with the gloomy backdrop of Dr. Barton's troubled marriage, his paranoia about his wife's flirtation with the deck-hand while our scary title character stalks around unhappily as the post-op air-breathing humanoid, this final effort includes a psychological / philosophical leaning that sets it apartBeyond this, the plastic surgery component of the screenplay further differentiates it, as it morphs into a more modern-day Frankenstein take. Noteworthy as an ending is the death of Barton at the hands of his morphed creature, followed by "Blackie's" own suicide.Perhaps lost now without much notice, the film is still a gem. When you have forgotten hundreds of movies you saw after 1956, while remembering ones like this, perhaps that says something.
Michael_Elliott
The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) ** (out of 4) The third and final film in the series has a group of scientists and others heading out to the Amazon in search of the Gill Man. They find and capture him but this time there's a difference. This time a mad scientist plans to give the Gill Man the ability to breathe out of water and they also try to make him more human.THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US isn't as bad as some of the Universal horror films out there but it's certainly misguided and doesn't seem to know what it exactly wants to do with itself. There's a small part of me that wants to give this film credit for trying to do something fresh and original with the movie but the screenplay simply offers up so many different ideas and yet none of them are fully explored or get played out in an interesting way.Again, there's no question that the screenplay is the biggest villain as it offers up a rather boring opening "hunt" and an even less interesting middle half. The middle of the film pretty much has the creature suffering from third degree burns so they remove some skin and notice that he might be more human than anyone realized. This is all well and good but the screenplay just doesn't go anywhere with it so we're left with a final act where the poor Gill Man is pretty much walking around, looking like the Frankenstein monster and not really doing anything. The attempts at making him human just never ring true.The performances are decent enough but there's no question that Rex Reason, Jeff Morrow, Leigh Snowden and Gregg Palmer just can't match anyone in the previous films.It's easy to see why this was the end to the series, although I will say that the ending itself is extremely good and leaves it up to the viewer to determine what happened. This is something very popular in horror films right now so on that level THE CREATURE WALKS AMONG US is ahead of its time. Sadly, that's about the only thing.
AD
