Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)
(On Cable TV, December 2019) I’m not sure about others, but in my mind Creature from the Black Lagoon’s Gill-man is one of the major Universal monsters. An often forgotten or maligned one, but still part of the line-up. (I suspect that its aquatic nature means that he’s not as reusable as Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula, or the Mummy in the popular imagination, but that’s how it goes.) What’s perhaps more interesting is that his introduction took place twenty-three years after the first Universal Monsters, in a very different environment for horror. The 1950s were nothing like the 1930s—the fantastic was getting more commonplace even outside the core audience for horror, and an entire slew of monster movies emerged during that decade to reflect various Cold War anxieties. As a result, it does feel slightly different—but it’s clearly among the best of those 1950s monster movies, playing off themes of unrequited romance and a somewhat sympathetic monster. There’s a clear line going from Creature from the Black Lagoon to 2017’s Oscar-winning The Shape of Water, perhaps reflecting the nature of empathy throughout decades. The film’s production values are not bad, especially when you get to the underwater sequences that present obvious acting and plot progression challenges when straight-up dialogue isn’t possible. It remains essential viewing for anyone interested in the origins of lasting cultural icons, but it’s also, thankfully, an entertaining film in its own right.
