Dear Creature:
Oh, how I wanted to love you! In your second shot, you present a lovely young woman (Jennifer Lynn Warren) taking off all of her clothes on the riverbank of a swamp in broad daylight. Everything! Broad daylight! She's naked! Your director, Fred Andrews, then makes sure that the woman doesn't dip her body under the water too far, so that the murky surface does not prevent us from casting our collective male gaze of appreciation upon all of her physical charms. I smiled with appreciation at the good sense and taste of Mr. Andrews. Obviously, he knows what horror fans want!
Then an alligator eats the naked girl. I expected this development, of course, but I was surprised that no gruesome footage of the death was shown. After all, even the lowest of low budgets allows creative filmmakers to display inventiveness in such a scene, thereby upending expectations and provoking a reaction of shock and/or awe and/or disgust and/or revulsion. Hmm, perhaps Mr. Andrews is aiming to use the trappings of a horror movie to make a more straightforward dramatic thriller?
I am a patient man, but when the next sequence consists of six young people driving through the swampy woods, and then stopping at a grocery store / gas station manned by interchangeable hillbillies (including Sid Haig and Pruitt Taylor Vance), honestly, I got very worried. I was hoping that Tucker and/or Dale from Tucker and Dale vs. Evil might swoop in and save you, Creature, but no such luck. Mr. Andrews, who co-wrote the script with Tracy Morse, may well be a devoted fan of horror movies, and, if so, more's the pity, because the story plays out as fan fiction written by a very enthusiastic teenager who doesn't yet have an original idea in his head.
Four more beautiful breasts are bared -- eight if you include the men -- but, unfortunately, wading through the entirety of your running time in order to see those fleeting fleshly delights is akin to slogging through sewage that has flooded a topless beach. This makes me sad, Creature, because I quite like Sid Haig when he's not forced to spout quasi-religious nonsense, as he is here, and I really love Amanda Fuller, who was devastating as a lost soul in Simon Rumley's Red White & Blue. (Now there's a horror movie that peels your skin off!) Ms. Fuller, however, struggles to make much of an impression, and it's a sobering reminder that actors can only rise so far above the material they are given, even if they are willing to flash Sid Haig, as Lauren Schneider does, and then do things that no sister should ever do to her brother.
Your very game cast tries hard to breathe life into your dying carcass, Creature -- I enjoyed the performances by Mehcad Brooks and Serinda Swan, who play the couple that are in love -- and I have no doubt that Mr. Andrews and the crew also worked very hard in the heat and mud. But I'm not sure why the decision was made to put so little effort into practical gore effects. A typical shot goes like this: someone attacks; we hear a thump or a crack or a crunch on the soundtrack; cut to victim screaming; cut to severed limb spattered with blood.
Really, you need to try harder than that to make a convincing horror movie nowadays. I'm not a gorehound by any means, but if your story lacks suspense and your dialogue lacks wit, you need something to hold my interest beyond the promise of a few scattered breasts in the first half of the movie. It all starts with the script, and this one lacks imagination and tension.
Good luck, Creature. You're going to need it.
Your pal,
Pete M.
Creature opens in more than 1,500 screens across the U.S. today. Check local listings for theaters and showtimes.