Horny Mer-Men Double Feature: CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON and HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP

When my pal and fellow monster enthusiast Ben Jeddrie admitted to me a few weeks ago that he’d never seen The Creature From The Black Lagoon, I was stunned, but also thrilled, because that gave me an excuse to watch Jack Arnold’s 1954 classic again. The 1980 Roger Corman-produced offshoot Humanoids From The Deep came up in conversation around the same time, and the idea for a double feature was born.

I was tempted to hold off on revisiting Black Lagoon until this fall’s forthcoming Blu-Ray release (as part of Universal’s Classic Monsters 8-movie set), but we’re talking about the Gillman here! Who can wait? By today’s standards, this film’s pacing is pretty stodgy, but as far as old school monster SF goes, you can’t really do much better. It has all the hallmarks of the period—lots of casual smoking, healthy yet occasionally fisticuffed debate amongst two leads (one who wants to study the newfound Creature and one who just can’t wait to jam a harpoon up its ass), lots of local flavour from the ill-fated South American guides and the jolly captain of the Rita, a gorgeous Julia Adams on board for eye candy, and, of course, one of the still-coolest monster designs ever put to film.

The Gillman was designed by an uncredited Millicent Patrick and constructed by Bud Westmore, and man, is he ever cool. He’s definitely one of the more sympathetic monsters in the classic Universal lineup—he’s just doing his lonely, evolutionarily-impossible thing in the jungle, and these science jerks show up and start trying to poison and harpoon him all over the place. The three-note theme music that accompanies his appearances is pretty nifty—a brassy “Bwa-bwa-BWAAAAAA!” that is the audio equivalent of someone walking up behind you, grabbing you by the shoulders, and shaking you back and forth violently. The underwater sequences are striking and beautiful, especially the scene where Julia Adams goes for an afternoon dip, not realizing that the Gillman is watching, fascinated, from the murky depths, mirroring her swimming moves. Despite his tragic end here, the Creature showed up for two increasingly-ridiculous sequels—1955’s Revenge Of The Creature (notably mostly for featuring one of Clint Eastwood’s earliest screen appearances as a lab assistant), and 1956’s The Creature Walks Among Us, which sees the poor guy trade in his gills for a sensible pantsuit.

A couple of side notes—if you dig the Gillman as much as I do, you owe it to yourself to visit comic writer Steve Niles’ Tumblr, which is jam-packed with cool old monster images, and is possibly the greatest resource for Black Lagoon ephemera on the web. Also, feast your eyes on Francesco Francavilla’s stunning Creature poster, previously available as one of those beautiful but super-limited edition prints from Mondo.

Keeping in mind the Gillman’s amorous advances towards Ms. Adams, 1980’s Humanoids From The Deep takes the idea to its more logical, but icky, conclusion. The mutant fishmen of Barbara Peeters’ exploitation classic (available in an extras-packed DVD or Blu-Ray from the good folks at Shout! Factory) have only one thing on their mind—sexy dames and plenty of ‘em. Oh, sure, they’re just as happy to rip the faces off the unsuspecting men of the small fishing village of Noyo, but what they really want is to procreate.

This is a movie that lets you know right off the bat what you’re in for. A small child is the first victim (thankfully, he only gets eaten, we assume), but with that as its opener, Humanoids establishes that nobody’s getting off easy here. A small army of aquatic beasties rises up from the waters around Noyo, the supposed result of kooky science experiments conducted at the local cannery or something. Director Barbara Peeters wasn’t interested in depicting merman rape in her film, so the always-devious Roger Corman had another director shoot additional footage of the attacks--pretty unpleasant stuff. On the other hand, there is some very weirdly funny stuff going on here too; there's a scene involving a horny would-be ventriloquist and his dummy that provides the movie's biggest, strangest laugh. The story culminates in a nighttime assault on the crowded boardwalk during a festival, where the townspeople go to war against the Humanoids in a chaotic finale filled with good, gory fun.

The cast, led by a large-faced Doug McClure, is pretty uninvolving, but Vic Morrow’s permed, mustachioed performance as a racist jerk livens the proceedings up a bit. The real reasons to watch are the Humanoids, created by an extremely young Rob Bottin (who would have been around 19 at the time). The impossibly-long limbed, slimy, shaggy, toothsome creatures look like the love child of the Gillman and the Metaluna Mutant from This Island Earth, with a bit of Audrey Two from Little Shop Of Horrors thrown in for good measure. James Horner contributes a cool, creepy score, and the hand-puppety finale is worth sticking around for. Definitely not for everyone, but a must for fans of vintage 80s monster cheese.

Wolfen

1981’s Wolfen is not a very good film, but I love it anyway. I find myself throwing it on once a year and enjoying the hell out of it despite its leaden pacing and preachy storyline. It was released the same year as two similar but far superior films—The Howling and An American Werewolf In London dazzled audiences with breakthrough transformation effects, witty, postmodern approaches to the werewolf legend, and buckets of gore. Comparatively speaking, Wolfen seems like the stuffy older cousin of these films, opting for environmental themes and a sober police-procedural approach that doesn’t quite coalesce into a fully satisfying movie. And yet, I always come back to it.



Based on Whitley Streiber’s novel of the same name, Wolfen isn’t strictly a werewolf story. The movie opens as a wealthy New York developer, his wife, and their bodyguard are violently killed by something off-camera in Battery Park, something that moves low to the ground before ripping out throats and tearing off limbs. Boozy detective Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is assigned to the case, reluctantly teaming up with younger investigator Rebecca Neff (Diane Venora). Tons of red herrings are thrown their way; were the murders actually committed by the terrorist group whose Patty Hearst-like spokesperson claims responsibility? Do the bodyguard’s Haitian Voodoo connections have any bearing on the case? What about outspoken Native American troublemaker Eddie Holt (a shockingly young, yet still craggy-faced Edward James Olmos) who seems to know a lot about the killings? The real culprit, it turns out, is a pack of godlike superwolves from Native American myth who have been forced out of their native habitat by encroaching development, hiding among the concrete canyons of Manhattan to feast on the rich and poor alike. As I said, not really a werewolf story, but what else do you call it?




The pacing of Wolfen is seriously out of whack, spending way too much time on those aforementioned red herrings when it’s obvious to the audience from the opening scenes that something supernatural is afoot. Finney’s detective character is enjoyably cranky, but not the most compelling lead, and the romantic subplot between Wilson and Neff is pretty farfetched. Far more interesting are the supporting characters, like Olmos as the Native activist, Gregory Hines as Wilson’s wisecracking cop buddy, and notable weirdo Tom Noonan (Manhunter, The Monster Squad) as a zoologist who is sympathetic to the Wolfen’s plight. In addition to the memorable supporting cast, director Michael Wadleigh (Woodstock) makes innovative (at the time, anyway) use of tracking shots for the Wolfen POV sequences, as well as heat-vision photography of the kind that would be popularized by Predator a few years later. The score by James Horner is suitably exciting, although he would go on to cannibalize parts of it for later projects like Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and Aliens. Wolfen’s real strength, though, comes from its urban setting, shot for maximum creepy impact by cinematographer Gerry Fisher. The central horror behind Wolfen—the idea that, even in a modern-day metropolis of technology and civilization, you could be hunted and torn apart by creatures straight out of folklore—doesn’t really come alive until Dewey and Neff’s final confrontation with the Wolfen on Wall Street. Wolfen doesn’t completely succeed in selling its premise of modern man vs. ancient myth, but it comes pretty close at intermittent moments throughout, and I love it for trying.