Not sure if that's 'Zilla or Barney

Creature

I guess it was cooler in 1986

     This is a video rental shelf teaser. We didn't get our first VHS player till 1989. So prior to that we rented from various stores, one in particular was called Sounds Easy at the local mall (circa '85-'86). I'd always walk through the horror section just to see the VHS sleeves. They always looked bloody, scary, and I wanted to watch them. My parents, however, weren't having any of that so I usually ended up with Godzilla 1985 or something similar. Before the internet, it was difficult to find these. Movies like TerrorVision, Chopping Mall, and Slumber Party Massacre were some I remember clearly and if you were lucky, you'd find them in the dustiest back shelves of the dying video rental store. Thanks to the internet, these are much easier to find but some are getting a premium for a DVD copy. Sometimes you have to dig real deep into the El Cheapo DVD bin to find a 5-10-20 movie set filled with crappy films like this that fell into public domain. Or, sometimes you just find them on Netflix. Go figure. So tonight features is Creature, based solely on the VHS sleeve I once saw in the mid-late '80s.

     What we've got is an alien that was stuck in a hibernation pod for countless years. In the future, people don't watch horror movies so they have no idea that YOU DON'T OPEN THINGS LIKE THAT. But they did, monster is released, and now it's time for some good 'ol crew butchering. This is a bit of an Alien rip-off, but there's some differences. For one, the Creature uses symbionts to control it's victims (post mortem, of course) and hunt other tasty humans. Or something like that. All that is really clear is it liked to kill, and then desecrate the corpse. Sadly, there really isn't much more meat on the bones than that. The dialog is lean, dull, but oddly technical. The F/X are decent for an upper echelon low budget film of this caliber though every time you hear the automatic doors open, you hear a re-purposed phaser sound effect which causes a little confusion as it sounds like a laser fight going on the other side of the door. Talent was on par with the budget and two actors of note are Wendy Schaal, and that dirty pedophile Klaus Kinski, father of Natasha Kinski. He's been a dead pedophile for decades and we're all thankful for that.

This is the Creature. Remind you of anyone? Anyone at all?

Over all, kinda dull but not horrid. However, I'd pick Life Force over this any day of the week.

Saturday: Ribbit.ribbit......