Creature (1985)

1985
Directed by William Malone
Starring Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Robert Jaffe, Diane Salinger, Marie Laurin and Klaus Kinski

Creature is an interesting little beast of an '80s horror flick.  It's not good by any conventional definition, but in the realm of all the Alien ripoffs, I've got to hand it to this movie for no other reason other than that it actually does feel like a movie.  'Cus let me tell you something (brother), I've seen some crappy horror films set in space.  'Memba Star Crystal?  I 'memba.  In contrast to that film and many others, this film has actors that actually fit that descriptor and production values that, while they aren't Ridley Scott, are at least closer to that standard than any film with this plot has a right to have.  High praise from the Lick Ness Monster.

Right about now is where I tell you the personal background I have with the film in question.  With Creature, I didn't see the film as a kid or even in college.  I first read about it in college on one of my favorite blog sites, and had it on the back burner for several years before finally finding an old beat-up VHS tape online.  Yeah, I own a VHS copy of this film and that is how I re-watched it in preparation for this review.  Old-school all the way, baby.  When it comes to crappy sci-fi/horror films, this is actually the ONLY way to go, because the experience of watching it with the telltale grain and lines of being watched many times as a rental probably added a good half-star rating.  If I'd watched the Leprechaun films this way, who knows, maybe I wouldn't have quit doing this blog for almost a full calendar year.  So I guess the point of this meandering paragraph is that VHS rules.  Now that all of that introductory drivel designed to make myself sound like I plan these things out in a manner other than scribbled notes during my down time at work is out of the way, let's get to the film.

Stop me if you've heard this one before.  One spaceship/space station is invaded by an unseen evil force, and another one is sent to salvage the operation.  Said salvage ship then encounters whatever it was that caused the catastrophe in the first place.  It's the plot of something like 12,738 sci/horror films.  Spoiler alert - it's also what we get here.  The specifics are that it's a space station that gets decimated on Saturn's Titan moon, and that the crew was largely German which helps us out later with the casting of the one survivor.  The sequence is actually fairly well-done from an execution and special effects standpoint, with the crew finding this weird-looking egg that promptly hatches.  Whatever is inside kills the dick out of everyone on the station, and the thing does its job well.  Time for the rescuers to arrive. 

Something that I love about all of the lower-budgeted variations of this plot is how the crew of the salvage ship almost always universally are a bunch of people who don't get along.  You'd think that the crews of these ships would be a pretty tight-knit unit, but nope, it's primarily bitchy douchebags.  This includes Lyman Ward, a.k.a. the guy who played Ferris Bueller's dad, and a few other jokers.  The main characters are Captain Davison (Stan Ivar, who I recognize from exactly zero other films) and the aforementioned Lyman Ward as his assistant David Perkins.  Ward was really good as Ferris' father, but he's unfortunately a big block of cardboard here.  There's also the ship's doctor (who isn't worth mentioning by name), security officer Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger), Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal), and the ship's romantic couple, Jon (Robert Jaffe) and Susan (former Penthouse pet Marie Laurin).  I don't think it's spoiler-ific to anyone who might sit down to watch this film that as you watch it Davison and Melanie are the only ones who don't immediately stand out as future victims.  Everyone else is either annoying or entirely disposable, and this method of writing was the first big mistake in the epic script of Creature.

It doesn't take long for the creature to make its presence known.  The first victim?  Surprisingly, slutty Susan.  Most movies like this at least keep this character around to make her especially dislikable for a big crowd-pleasing death later on, but nope.  First one.  I can't say that I blame the director; the quotient of Marie Laurin's scorching hotness is inversely related to her acting ability.  At least we got to see her naked first, and it's an undisputed masterpiece.  The crew finds all of the old bunch's dead bodies inside the space station, and this is where we get a hint of this movie's slightly larger-than-normal budget.  The station...actually looks like a station, and while the music is pretty much awful, the atmosphere ain't half-bad.  It's at least good enough to distract us from the surviving characters.

Hey, kids, it's Klaus Kinski!  You might remember him from movies such as the 1978 remake of Nosferatu...and several other films to be stated later.  Actually, I have seen him in a few things, and he's almost always good.  He's easily the best thing about this film.  He's the surviving crew member from the last ship, and his job is to essentially provide exposition to the new guys and then croak as soon as it becomes convenient.  It might not sound like much...but it's a key role, trust me.

So a few words about how this is a horror film.  The creature in this film is kind of a mix between John Carpenter's The Thing and just a straight-up zombie film.  The thing likes to attach itself to victims with a "parasite" version (Alien much?) and then it transforms into a new host, but kind of a zombified version of its new host.  For an indication of what we're dealing with, Marie shows up after she dies and stripes naked to entice a heartbroken Jon to venture outside onto the moon's surface, where she immediately removes his helmet to let him asphyxiate.  This kind of stuff is Shakesperian.  Sarcasm aside, it's a good way to save money on the budget by having the "jumping from body to body" trope, but the creature itself does show up in the final trimester to sabotage the ship and do other fascinating stuff.  Once it DOES show up in its full form, the design is actually pretty impressive all things considered.  Not Queen Alien quality, but decent.

This film is kind of an odd one with me.  Before watching it, I knew it would be right up my alley, and it was.  But not in the way that I ever wanted to watch it again until two weeks ago.  A lot of horror films that I don't like as much seem to start off with a good concept (I love horror movies, and they rope me in easily!) and then fall apart once they start offing people.  This one is different.  It starts off terminally slow and boring, but gradually gets better as it goes along.  The final trimester or so once the script goes full "s**t hits the fan" on us is pretty fun.  You won't be pissing yourself in terror or anything, but it's fun.  Unfortunately, though, some people had to survive this movie, and that we go to epic fail mode.  If you're looking for a horror flick that will get you emotionally invested, you're not gonna find it here.

Time to dispense some James Cameron-esque judgment.  Creature gets ** out of ****.  It's definitely worth a watch if you like cheesy sci-fi/horror films, but if you don't, you're not going to find much to convert you.  Just stick with Alien.