Halloween Review – Creature (1985)

Happy Halloween everyone! Our first first film of the day is a little known Alien knock-off from the 80’s from the director who would go on to direct the remake of the House on Haunted Hill, and the Ring-knock-off-before-it-was-cool fear dot com. The review of The Thing will go up this afternoon.

Creature

Directed by William Malone
Written by William Malone & Alan Reed

Cast

Stan Ivar as Mike Davison
Wendy Schall as Beth Sladen [1]
Lyman Ward as David Perkins
Robert Jaffe as Jon Fennel
Dian Salinger as Melanie Bryce
Annette McCarthy as Dr. Wendy H. Oliver
Marie Laurin as Susan Delambre
Klaus Kinski as Hans Rudy Hofner
Jeff Solomon as the creature.

Available from Amazon.com.

The Premise

In the future, resources in space are primarily being exploited by two companies: one from the US, and the other from Germany. When a xeno-archeological find is discovered on Titan, the two companies rush to send expeditions. However, the two teams will have to work together to survive.

High Points

This movie succeeds in one aspect that the other Alien knock-offs fail, dialog that is casual and flows properly without sounding artificial or stilted.

Low Points

There is a nude scene in this film that is the textbook definition of “gratuitous nudity”, and it’s attached to a scene where a character acts spectacularly dumb.

Scores

Originality: Blatant knockoff of Alien. 2/6

Effects: This is about on par, effects wise, to a late-80s Doctor Who story, but with a better monster suit and with gore effects, including head explosions. 3/6

Story: The film has an interesting mix of The Thing and Alien, and is executed competently, though not flawlessly. 3/6

Acting: The actors are all pretty good, except for Kinski, where I can’t tell if he’s going with the script, or if he simply wouldn’t give the director a clean take, and as he’s the only “name” in front of the camera (complete with his name in the opening credits getting highlighted), the director wasn’t able to fire him. 4/6

Production: The film manages to do a good job of pulling off ST:TNG style “Planet Hell” sets, well before that show started airing. 4/6

Emotional Response: 3/6

Overall: This film isn’t great, but it is okay. 3/6

In total, Creature gets 22/42.

Countdown

Weekend 1: Gravity
Weekend 2: Dead Clowns
Weekend 3: Lifeforce
Weekend 4: Carrie (2013)
Halloween: The Thing and Creature