Movie Info
Movie Name: The Creature Walks Among Us
Studio: Universal International Pictures
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): April 26, 1956
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
The gill-man does his best Human Torch impression…”FLAME ON!!!”
The gill-man survived encounter with the authority and is now hiding in the swamps of the Florida Everglades. Dr. William Barton (Jeff Morrow) leads a team into the Everglades to capture the creature, but the gill-man is severely burned in the process. Fighting for his life, the gill-man’s physiology begins to change and doctors discovers undeveloped lungs that could save him. Now a fish out of water, the creature finds himself trapped between man and fish, but quickly realizes there is more evil in the world than him.
Directed by John Sherwood, The Creature Walks Among Us is the final film in the “Creature” saga from Universal Pictures. Following Revenge of the Creature in 1955, the film was not released in 3D like the two previous entries and wasn’t well received.
Bad news on your face-lift…you still look like a fish
As a fan of Creature from the Black Lagoon and a tepid fan of its sequel, The Creature Walks Among Us is like a cruel joke. Everything that made the original films great is wiped out here…though I will admit that the movie is much more original than Revenge of the Creature.
Thematically, the decision to make the gill-man a human in this picture does make sense. It turns him into the victim as he realizes humans also murder and when Jed Grant (Gregg Palmer) is killed by Barton for advances on his wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden). The movie is a bummer but does have a nice ending with the creature deciding he would rather die a fish than live as a human by entering the sea.
I’ve got something in my chest…oh yeah, lungs.
While switching up the plot of this entry is smart, it probably was done more out of financial reasons. The movie features few underwater scenes (since the creature can’t breathe there anymore), and it was probably much cheaper to make the movie with the bulky “humanoid” creature suit replacing the cool gill-man suit (with even old scenes reused). It just doesn’t have the appeal of the original films.
The creature is one of Hollywood’s all-time great monsters. It was original and it was fun…something that The Creature Walks Among Us lacks. With all the talk of remakes of this film, a film that encompasses all three pictures could be a better and more rounded picture. The creature has oddly been left untouched thus far, and I hope it remains that way…of course remaking this entry in the series couldn’t make it much worse.
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