Not Your Typical Creature Feature...

Posted by Boo

This weekend, TD and I took a jaunt into the backwoods of Louisiana. Not literally, of course, but vicariously, through a movie called Creature. Creature is the directorial debut of Fred Andrews, who has previously worked as a production designer on the TV show Without a Trace, as well as on one of the 8 Films to Die For called Dark Ride. Not only did Andrews direct Creature, but he co-wrote the script with Tracy Morse. Morse has dabbled in various facets of the movie biz, but nothing particularly noteworthy.

This movie begins with a group of young, college-aged kids taking a camping trip somewhere out in the forests of Louisiana. So far, it’s starting out like a lot of our favorite slasher flicks, and the homage becomes even greater when they stop off at a backwoods convenience store for a potty break, only to find the joint crawling with a few creepy locals.

Among those locals is none other than Sid Haig, the ever unforgettable Captain Spaulding from House of 1,000 Corpses. Spaulding has become as iconic as some of the other creepy clown favs, like Pennywise, the Joker, and that terrifying clown doll from Poltergeist. So it's not surprising that Haig tends to dominate any scene he's in, and this holds true for his work in Creature. And to make matters even better, he is surrounded by good company, because the other two creepy locals, Bud (Wayne Pere) and Jimmy (Davis Jensen) are rock stars in their own character skins. Jensen in particular sticks in my mind. He was able to perfectly embrace that Bayou accent, an accent that’s as muddy as the swamps from whence it came. Jensen is captivating, absolutely believable in his hillbilly-isms, and his on screen chemistry with his hillbilly cohort, Pere, is really fun to watch.

Our college kids are no acting slouches, either. Most recognizable is Mehcad Brooks, who played the character Eggs in the ever baffling season two of True Blood. And chances are every male viewer – and some female viewers – will find it hard to stop looking at Brooks’ movie girlfriend, played by the lovely Serinda Swan. The only actor in this film that didn’t impress me much was Amanda Fuller playing Beth, the straight laced chick of the bunch. I wasn’t surprised to find her career is riddled with mediocre bit parts in various TV shows, though she does have a recurring role on Grey’s Anatomy.

Yawn.

But I digress…

As you can imagine, our fun-loving camping trip turns into a swampy nightmare of epic proportions. However, don’t be fooled! This isn’t your typical low budget movie monster senselessly rampaging and killing college kids simply because they dare fornicate and smoke pot. No, this monster has a calculated agenda, an agenda which requires some kind of smarts to execute. And whenever our monster has smarts, he stops being low budget cheese and starts being, well, plain fucking scary!

I won’t go into more detail, because there are a few plot twists that I don’t want to inadvertently give away. I am a firm believer that our internet community should use a little discretion in their spoilers, and if they must – absolutely must! – give something away, they should do so with a very clear spoiler alert. I, however, subscribe to the theory that if you’re so damn interested, don’t rely on internet spoilers, just watch the thing yourself!

I will say that while the plot twists were fun, I almost missed the first one. The hubby had to point it out to me. And I had a lot of questions, questions which were never fully answered. I suspect this was intentional, to give Creature a bit of mystery and intrigue, but sometimes mystery and intrigue stops being mystery and intrigue and just feels distractingly vague. As a viewer, I feel I must have certain questions answered, and when I don’t get those answers, I’m a little let down.

There was also a point near the end where I started to have a “this is getting weird, guys” kind of moment, the plot becoming a little unfocused and getting out of hand. But then I remember this is Andrews first directing, as well as writing, credit. For a first effort, it’s quite solid. I’ve seen some real stinkers out there, stinkers from seasoned film makers, mind you – and at this point we are all looking at George Lucas in shame for his epic turd, Phantom Menace – so, if the plot gets a little wonky in Creature, meh, we can hang with it.

In the end, the monster in Creature, with a really stellar creature design, is so fun to watch on screen that the flaws in its plot really don’t matter. And backed by some solid acting and an inventive story, this is definitely worth checking out, guys.