The Creature Walks Among Us, 1956.
Directed by John Sherwood.
Starring Jeff Morrow, Rex Reason, Leigh Snowden, Gregg Palmer, Maurice Manson and David McMahon.
SYNOPSIS:
The Gill-Man is captured by scientists and begins to mutate so it can breathe air and walk on land. Cue lots of rampaging mutant creature madness… possibly.
Back in the 1950s horror films rarely got sequels, especially direct ones that followed on to tell one long story. The Universal Monsters films were loosely connected by tenuous links but ever-changing casts, filmmakers and budgets meant that there weren’t really that many clear and consistent tales being told, but when The Creature From the Black Lagoon came out in 1954 – a good decade after Universal’s golden period had ended – the studio had hit gold once again and so a sequel was rushed into production. Revenge of the Creature came out a year later and gave audiences more of the Gill-Man but this time in an aquarium setting for him to go mad in, and although it was definitely a lesser film in terms of production it was carried along by the horror/sci-fi zeitgeist of the time. And then the following year Universal followed that up with The Creature Walks Among Us.
In this film, a group of scientists led by the hot-headed William Barton (Jeff Morrow) chase after the Gill-Man after it escapes the Florida aquarium where it was the main attraction. Pursuing it to the Everglades, the team – including Barton’s beautiful wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden) and Jed Grant (Gregg Palmer), who has ideas about having Marcia for himself – hunt the creature down and take it back to their lab after it is burned during the capture. The fire has damaged its outer layer of skin and the doctors discover a layer of human-like skin underneath, and the creature also begins to lose its gills and breathe using lungs. And then it wakes up…
Oh, and there’s also an irritatingly over-played love triangle story that could have been left on the cutting room floor as it totally detracts from the action that should be taking place a bit more frequently than it does. For a film that runs at 78 minutes The Creature Walks Among Us is all over the place when it comes to pacing, with around 35 minutes dedicated to the chase through the Everglades (which recycles a lot of underwater footage from the first movie) and the bulk of the rest concerning itself with Dr. Barton chastising his wife for nearly getting raped (twice) by the menacing Jed. Of course, all of this kitchen sink drama stuff makes you dislike everybody in the film intensely and actually root for the Gill-Man, whose make-up and mask look a lot cheaper than before (or that could be put down to the shedding of skin…?) and who is actually the most passive character in the film. Until the final 10 minutes that is, and then it goes on the rampage in an Incredible Hulk style that really should have come 15 minutes sooner and caused more carnage. Instead it is Barton who causes more bloodshed and is the object of our disgust instead of the Gill-Man, who is just reacting to his new environment that he didn’t ask to be in.
Much like its spiritual cousin Curse of the Fly, The Creature Walks Among Us is a film full of ideas that could have really opened up their respective mythologies after the bog-standard Revenge of…/Return of… sequels that came before them but, as is the norm in Hollywood, budget and decent scripts got thrown to one side to get a film made quickly and cheaply. The potential of having the creature walking around in the civilised world is still an idea that appeals and with the current spate of classic monster updates that has been going on then there is a possibility that we could see the Gill-Man returning to our screens in a brand new adventure, but until that happens then this is the final canonised story involving the creature and after the glorious majesty of The Creature From the Black Lagoon and the simple-but-fun shenanigans of Revenge of the Creature (Clint Eastwood’s first film, if you didn’t already know), The Creature Walks Among Us is quite a drop off in quality. Buy it to complete your collection but out of the three it’s likely to be the one you return to the least.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng&v=8k_v0cVxqEY
Originally published August 24, 2015. Updated April 14, 2018.
