Revenge of the Creature (1955)

Clever, believable, and super fun to watch. It totally has replay value.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Omehow, the monster has survived and a new expedition - oh hey, there's Lucas again - captures the Gill-man and brings him to the Ocean Harbor Oceanarium - thank SeaWorld - in Florida, where Professor Clete Ferguson (John Agar, Shirley Temple's first husband, who appeared in tons of science fiction films along with many appearances alongside John Wayne) and ichthyology student Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson, who reprised the role in 2005's The Naked Monster). Of course, Helen and Clete fall in love. Of course, the Gill-man falls for her, too.The Gill-man eventually escapes, but he can't stop thinking about Helen, even abducting her from a party. Clete and the police chase him down and, as is customary, gun our amphibian antagonist down. A slave to love, trapped until the end!Despite being the screen debut of Clint Eastwood (in a blink and you'll miss him appearance as a lab technician who misplaces a rat) and being shot in 3-D, Revenge of the Creature isn't quite as good as the original. But it made the most money of the three, so that led to 1956's The Creature Walks Among Us.

(Flash Review)The story picks up some time after the original with the objective of locating and capturing the creature to use as a tourist attraction. Once again the expedition team has no fear about swimming in the waters, which adds excitement early on. Haha. Once captured, they bring it back and place it in an aquarium for display. The creature's strength and newfound lust for the human woman proves too much for the restraints; much like King Kong. And the chase to capture resumes again but in a populated area. Fun classic monster movie that is better than the original I'd say as the story had a little more meat to it.

Revenge of the Creature (1955)*** (out of 4) Sequel to CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON has a new group of explorers heading to the Amazon to capture the Gill Man. They're able to do so and they take him back to a Sea World like center where they plan to put him on display. Once there a scientist (John Agar) and a grad student (Lori Nelson) try to determine how intelligent the creature is and sure enough he begins to have feelings for the woman and finally breaks free.REVENGE OF THE CREATURE is an exceptional sequence that actually manages to match the first film in terms of quality. I've never found the original to be among the studio's all-time greats like FRANKENSTEIN, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN or THE WOLF MAN but there's no doubt that it deserves its classic label and I'd say this film also deserves to be called a classic monster movie. The story obviously takes elements from the first film and mixes them with elements from KING KONG and for the most part the entire film is quite successful.I think one of the best things that they carry over from the original movie is the sympathy angle towards the Gill Man. Here this element is really laid on because the movie manages to make you feel really bad for the creature who is chained up as an attraction and he's unable to do anything or that get electrical shocks as the scientist tries to teach him the meaning of "stop." There's no question that the movie manages to work so well because of the Gill Man and the way director Jack Arnold makes you sympathize with him but there's also scenes showing how dangerous he is so you still wouldn't want to run into him no matter how bad you felt for him.The actors are also quite good here with Agar and Nelson filling their roles nicely and they manage to work extremely well together. Another major plus is the underwater photography, which is quite excellent and a major step up from the first film. I'd also argue that the kill scenes here are a lot more effective. There are some faults to be found and especially with some of the stuff that is copied from the original movie (like him falling for the woman) but overall REVENGE OF THE CREATURE is a success.

. . . from my granny's original review of a CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, which appeared in the Spinal Column in the 1950s, and which I tweaked and reposted here yesterday, after viewing CFBL for the first time and finding that I agreed with her about the potential wasting of a prime tourist attraction on the part of the expedition team of the original Gill Man flick. In this first sequel, Gill Man soon is captured and turned into another roadside attraction. If I have a bone to pick with the sequel, it has to do with Florida's geography vis a vis the plot of this movie. Toward the end, when the as yet UNNAMED Gill Man (which is strange in itself, since the first things zoos do when they get a new animal is to give it a name; granny told me Gill Man looks like a Dobie Gillis-type) escapes his chains at the "oceanarium," he swims for a few minutes trailing Helen on day five of his freedom. By dark they're in Jacksonville, FL, hundreds of miles from the implied site of the oceanarium. How is it that Gill Man is so much faster than Michael Phelps? Is he on steroids or something? Plus, did the Devonian Period really just end 250,000 years ago, as one of the scientists here says early on? Obviously, if this movie were released today, the Creationists would be picketing in the street. But anytime they put my hometown on the big screen, I'm rating the flick as at least a "7," even if it is something like PIRANHA GIRLS GONE WILD 3DD.