Creature - Fred Andrews - Featured

Creature Review

Creature - Fred Andrews

There might not be a more colossal misfire this year than Creature. That’s not to say that it’s the worst horror film of the year. but there are a few things worth recommending in this tale of a monster living in the Louisiana bayou. Director Fred Andrews seems to have no clue what tone he wants his film to have. It isn’t bloody or sleazy enough to be a serviceable grindhouse throwback and there isn’t anything particularly inventive about its spin on the dead teenager film. It starts cheesy, turns ponderous, and has the worst ending to any film this year. Worst of all, Creature feels no need to overcome its shortcomings by at least being fun. There’s very little joy to be had in how bad this film is.

A group of college students (who all look like they are in their thirties) on a camping trip in the backwoods of gator country are stalked by a mutant who demands human sacrifice from local residents. The creature’s backstory is explained, but not a heck of a lot else is. I honestly can’t tell you the dynamics of what constitutes a human sacrifice to the monster since it is never full made clear. All the audience needs to know going in is that this monster is just going to kill a bunch of stereotypes and there are going to be a bunch of creepy hillbillies.

To the film’s credit and in an effort to accentuate anything positive about this drab affair, Creature is very well shot and it does manage to subvert the notion that the black guy always dies first by making True Blood’s Mechad Brooks the only person fully capable of stopping the monster. The performances themselves are all just fine; with horror vet Sid Haig showing up as the creepy store owner who sets the film’s “plot” into motion.

I use the airquotes around the word plot because I can’t honestly tell you guys what the point of all of this is. I guess the creature wants a child. Or blood. Or the blood of a specific family? Maybe the town’s residents are related to the monster even though the film previously established that he never was able to have a kid as a human. None of it makes a lick of sense, which would be fine if it decided on a single tone and stuck to it. A film with no direction can be saved sometimes by either going over the top or playing everything so straight that it goes over the top by default. There is simply no effort here to make anything even remotely watchable.

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As for the ending, I am tempted to spoil it, but that isn’t my style. On the other hand the ending is so fucking stupid that I am afraid that if I don’t spoil it, someone will punch me in the face for not warning them about it. Suffice to say, I would have preferred watching a blank screen or an unfinished film than see the ending of Creature. You could easily leave before the end of the film, though. It’s not as if it is going to make any less sense.



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