Revenge of the Creature

In my review of The Creature from the Black Lagoon I noted that this series more-or-less formed a thematic trilogy. To be clear: that is not to say that these films are all truly good. While Revenge of the Creature could have been a lot worse, and it’s evident that a lot of work went into it. It also gets credit for actually moving the story forward, rather than repeating it. However, it’s still a pale comparison of the original.

That said, the movie opens with an expedition to capture the Gill Man, and withing a few minutes the task is achieved and the Gill Man is on his way to an Oceanarium to be put on public display. Naturally, it’s only a matter of time before he falls in love with a woman and breaks out. Basically, it’s the end of King Kong without the build up or fantastic locales.

The underwater scenes don’t look quite as good as in the first film. I’m honestly not sure if that’s because the budget was lowered for the sequel, or because the characters are now in an aquarium, so the movie made no effort to disguise the fact that the actors are as well. I’m also uncertain if the costume is inferior, or if it’s effect is just hindered by a mixture of chaining the Gill Man up underwater, and having him walk through parking lots, neither of which are situations that seem appropriate to this iconic monster.

The film’s human plot follows a love triangle between the Gill Man’s captor and keeper, Joe Hayes (John Bromfield), psychologist Clete Ferguson (John Agar, and no I don’t know why a psychologist is studying a fish person), and ichthyology student Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson). Honestly, the character’s really aren’t interesting enough to merit much discussion. Helen loves Clete, Joe loves Helen, but for the most part they’re all portrayed as too professional for much real drama to come out of it. They work together without much incident until the Gill Man kills Joe.

As with the last movie, there’s definitely an environmentalist message here, but once again I’m not sure if it was intentional or not. The researchers “train” the Gill Man to understand the word “stop” by luring him with food and then delivering an electrical shock (also, they’re in the water mere feet from him when using the electric prod...just thought I’d point that out…). This may have been intended to elicit sympathy, or it may have simply been the way animals were trained in the 1950s.

What little tension the film does have comes from the final act. After his escape, the characters apparently assume that the Gill Man is heading back to the Amazon, and are caught off guard when he somehow tracks down and kidnaps Helen in Jacksonville (so we get at least a brief period of Florida swamps, which look a lot cooler than the aquarium). I could complain that a fish man is a terrible symbol for primal masculinity, but that was true of the first film, and it works better here than many other things. Also, the idea that the Gill Man realizes that Helen is air-breathing, and transports her by carrying her along a river, and leaving her on the bank to re-submerge himself every few minutes, is pretty clever.

The single thing that annoys me the most about this film is the periodic cut to news reports. The Newscaster (Ned Le Fevre) serves two purposes: reminding us of what we just saw, and informing us of things that the filmmakers couldn’t be bothered to show us. Either way, he just annoys me.

Also, for some reason Clete is put in charge of the Jacksonville Police Department when they go hunting for Helen. I assume it was because he “understood” the creature, but it still comes across as awkward. It even seems silly by the usual standards of a 50s B-movie.

The film ends with the Gill Man being shot multiple times and killed, despite being immune to bullets in the previous movie. Then again, it’s Universal, continuity was never their strongest suit. No one ever expected these movies to be watched back-to-back. That said, the final shot of the film seems only to exist to show that the creature had died, and not merely run away, in a bizarre reversal of the standard Movie Monster final shock.

I don’t really recommend this film, honestly. It’s more appropriate to MST3K than to a straight viewing. Watch it there if you’re going to watch it. There’s a reason that it was this film, and no the original, that was picked for riffing.