Movie Review: Creature From the Black Lagoon

Directed by Jack Arnold, 1954
IMDb listing

Pros: excellent pacing, some tense scenes, good music

Cons: Kay is useless, mostly natives die

When a scientist makes an amazing discovery in the Amazon jungle, a team returns to continue the dig. But instead of more fossils, they find something alive and deadly.

I was impressed by the music and its role in creating much of the tension in the film, especially during the well shot underwater scenes. One refrain has what might be the genesis of the JAWS theme (the pulsing 2 beat alteration). The pacing was great, with some down time between ‘scares’.

The plot, while simplistic, does what’s required in a horror film. The acting’s pretty good, though I wish Kay had more to do - as a scientist - than swim and look pretty and scream occasionally when things go wrong. In researching her rather distracting wardrobe for the film I learned that Madonna’s pointy bra was actually a throw back to 40s and 50s ‘bullet bra’ fashion. Huh.

While it’s not scary in today’s terms, I can imagine that it caused people to jump or scream in theatres back when it opened. The creature looks great considering it’s a rubber suit. I’m impressed that they thought to have it swim in a different way from humans to make it feel more alien. I also liked its open mouthed breathing on shore (though it wouldn’t surprise me to learn this had something to do with the make-up rather than as a creature ‘effect’).

It's mostly the natives helping the white scientists who die, which kind of annoyed me considering natives understand their land and its dangers better than the white scientists of the expedition. Several deaths happen off screen, and the ones that don’t aren’t gory.

The film holds up surprisingly well.

Movie Review: The Shape of Water

Directed by Guillermo del Toro, 2017

IMDb listing 

Pros: brilliant acting, interesting story, great creature effects

Cons: 

“At a top secret research facility in the 1950s, a lonely janitor forms a unique relationship with an amphibious creature that is being held in captivity.” (IMDb)

Sally Hawkins plays Elisa Esposito, the mute janitor, who’s able to hear but cannot speak. The actress does a brilliant job with a difficult role. I thought it was cool that sometimes her signing was subtitled and others it was verbally translated by friends. In one scene she forces the person she’s talking to to repeat her words back in order to force him to listen to what she’s saying. I was also impressed by how much information she transmitted via gestures and facial expressions.

I loved Giles, her flatmate artist who’s also lonely, and feeling his age. In fact, the entire supporting cast did great jobs. Michale Shannon as Strickland, the antagonist, was quite menacing. Octavia Spencer as a fellow janitor, and often translator, was a real joy to watch.

The creature effects were wonderful. It looks very realistic.

I’m not sure I believe the two could fall in love so quickly given the communication - and situational - difficulties of their meeting. I did appreciate that they took time to develop a relationship and trust.

The story had more varied threads than I was expecting, elevating it from a regular creature feature to a kind of spy thriller/romance.

My husband pointed out that Esposito’s bathroom was surprisingly watertight in order to handle the pressure during one scene. I expected more water to leak out around the door, if nothing else.

There is some nudity and sexual content. There’s also some violence and a few scenes that made me cringe.

It’s a brilliant film, a real modern fairy-tale.

Movie Review: Kong: Skull Island

Directed by Jordan Vogt-Roberts, 2017
IMDb listing

Pros: gorgeous cinematography, excellent creature effects, interesting characters

Cons: characters make too much noise in the jungle, minor irritants

A team of scientists, accompanied by a squad of Vietnam helicopter pilots, travel to Skull Island for a land survey. But what they find corroborates the crackpot theories of a small government organization: monsters exist.

First off, the cinematography is gorgeous. There are a large number of simply gorgeous shots in this film. The colours are vivid and the scenery lush.

There’s enough set-up for the characters for you to care for them when they reach the island, but not so much (given their number) that you mourn them when some die. I really liked a few of the characters and thought the acting all around was well done.

The creature effects were excellent, with Kong and the other monsters looking real for CGI creations.

The natives seemed to be treated more respectfully than these films generally do, which impressed me. The scene where they first appear is quite impressive and I loved the paintings in their sacred space.

A few minor things bugged me about the film. They make a surprising amount of noise walking through the jungle and on the boat, noise that could attract monster to them. There’s also a scene where the ground is combustable, where it felt like there should have been more explosions and/or fire given what’s going on.



***SPOILERS***










There’s a scene at the end of the film where one of the characters makes the ultimate sacrifice. He takes out a grenade and waits for the monster to eat him, so he can heroically kill it through his own death. But the monster bashes him away and the man dies in a futile gesture. It made me think how war is generally portrayed - heroes, laying down their lives to save their families and countries. But the truth of the matter is that most combatants aren’t doing anything more than throwing their lives away. Yes, there are people and battles that were hugely important in gaining rights and freedoms (Vimy Ridge comes to mind), but I think modern audiences are no longer as enamoured by the fantasy of the war hero and glorifying sacrifices in war.

Movie Review: The Mummy (1932)

Directed by Karl Freund

IMDb listing

Pros: interesting story, good effects

Cons: mediocre acting 

In 1922 an archaeological expedition in Egypt dug up the unusual mummy of Imhotep and a strange box containing a scroll. Both disappear. Ten years later, a new expedition discovers the untouched tomb of a priestess of Isis, whose spirit, Imhotep discovers, is possessing a modern young woman.  

My understanding of this film was that it consisted of a mummy in torn and tattered bandages, roaming around killing people. So I found the film quite surprising. The mummy I expected only shows up in the first few minutes of the film, after which Imhotep (well played by Boris Karloff) appears as a wizened man.

Imhotep isn’t awakened via a spoken spell, so he was either alive in some form this whole time, the spell was uttered inaudibly, or writing out a small portion of it is enough to enact it. I actually found the magic spells Imhotep uses later in the film interesting, though not likely authentic (in terms of language or how ancient Egyptians thought of magic). The make-up and costumes were excellent. The film used white actors for the important Egyptians, and black ‘Nubians’ as servants, though Ancient Egyptians would not necessarily look like their modern inhabitants (Egypt was conquered and settled by several nations in ancient and medieval times).

Helen’s ‘illness’ reminded me of Lucy (and later Mina) from Dracula, something that was supernaturally called by the antagonist that saw her wasting away due to her attempts to avoid the summons. 

There’s a rather sudden romance, which felt kind of out of place given what’s going on and how little the characters know of each other. The fact that Helen (Zita Johann) even points this out, just made it worse as Frank ignores her concerns.  David Manners as Frank Whemple didn’t impress me much as the love interest (there was no chemistry between the couple and no time to develop any relationship), nor did the wise doctor Muller, played by Edward Van Sloan. Both were fairly wooden, and the doctor’s constant expositionary leaps of logic as to what’s going on were kind of annoying.

It’s an interesting film, more for its place in history and how inaccurately it’s remembered than because it’s great cinema.

Movie Review: Ragnarok (aka Gåten Ragnarok)

Directed by: Mikkel Brænne Sandemose (2013)

IMDb listing  

Pros: excellent special effects, interesting characters, neat premise, no gore

Cons: not much action, small cast lessened tension

Sigurt Svendsen is a Norwegian archaeologist with some unconventional ideas.  When his partner makes an astounding discovery they assemble a small group to check out an ancient Viking site of power. 

I give kudos to this film for having two tag along kids I actually liked.  Yes, Ragnhild is moody and pissed at her dad, but the film establishes good reasons for this that felt realistic and pitiable.  Sigurt makes mistakes but is trying to be a good father even as he feeds his obsession with Vikings.  Elisabeth was simply awesome.

While the special effects were few, they were really well done.  The creature, when you finally see it, looks great and moves realistically.

Given the small cast, there wasn’t as much tension with regards to who would survive the journey, but I thought they solved a few problems creatively.  I also liked the explanation of what the creature is.  It was one of those ideas that sounds obvious after it’s stated, but doesn’t occur to you before hand.

I enjoyed this.  It’s a fun gore free time waster horror flick.