Revenge of the Creature

1955  NR  HORROR  1h 22min

CAST— John Agar, Lori Nelson

MUSIC— Herman Stein  DIRECTOR— Jack Arnold

     The Gill Man returns in this followup to The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). It's been a year since the scientific crew aboard the Rita fought the amphibious Gill Man deep within the bowels of the Amazon rain forest. Now a capture team has come to finish the job and take the creature into captivity. The Gill Man is taken to a marine life research and exhibit center in Florida. Already one can tell that's a big mistake. While the head researcher gets smoochy with a female science student, the Gill Man is being examined, observed, poked and cattle prodded within the confines of a fish tank. The poor guy, once used to the freedom of the Amazon, is now reduced to being a toy for scientists who use negative reinforcement techniques to try to teach him (really, one begins to feel for him, thinking that his promised revenge couldn't come too soon). The creature inevitably escapes his holding tank, terrorizes the sightseers and subsequently begins to stalk the fetching science student, culminating in a final standoff along the shores of Jacksonville. A worthy successor to the first film in terms of action and monster footage, though transplanting the creature to a Florida tourist trap seems like an obvious and desperate attempt to make the creature's reign of terror seem that much more frightening. Still, a fairly good Universal Monster movie. Final note: Check out a young Clint Eastwood, in his film debut, in an uncredited role as a lab assistant. Originally filmed in 3D. AKA Return of the Creature, Return of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

OUR RATING— ** ½

PRECEDED BY— The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954)

FOLLOWED BY— The Creature Walks Among Us (1956)