The Creature Walks Among Us (1956) Review

"We all stand between the jungle and the stars, at a crossroads."
-Dr. Thomas Morgan



After the events of the second movie, a team of scientists venture into the Everglades and quickly capture the Creature from the Black Lagoon.  One of their number, Dr. William Barton (Jeff Morrow), turns out to be a mad scientist and wants to change the Creature and use what he learns to change humankind.  Dr. Barton might be the true monster on their ship.


What Works:

The 3rd film in this series is actually my favorite just because of how bizarre it is.  The Creature changes to become more human.  That's a bonkers concept and I'm shocked they went with it.  It's very refreshing after the snooze-fest of the second film and I love that they did something radically different with this series.

The first third of this movie is pretty much par for the course.  A group of people go on an expedition to capture the Creature.  We've seen this before, but I have to say, the sequence where they capture the Creature is very exciting.  It may be familiar, but it had high energy and it felt like the characters were truly in danger.

The characters are much more interesting than their counterparts in the first two film.  Dr. Barton's wife, Marcia (Leigh Snowden), is on board the ship.  Their marriage is unhappy, to say the least, thanks to his violent and jealous behavior.  Two of the other men on the ship are interested in her, one she likes back, the other is a major creep.  I'm so used to movie from this era having generic characters in stock romances.  These characters are much more interesting than that, which is very refreshing.

Finally, I really love the moment where the now partially humanized Creature jumps back into the sea and starts to drown.  Dr. Morgan (Rex Reason) jumps in to save the Creature.  It's a bizarre scene with the Creature trying to fight Morgan before realizing he is trying to save him.  The two of them share a breathing tube and make their way back to the surface.  Watching this was utterly surreal and I really couldn't believe how weird this movie was getting, but I loved it.


What Sucks:

We don't spend nearly as much time underwater here as we did in the first two movies, but again, the underwater stuff is mostly boring and I could feel myself zoning out.

Marcia is a character of wasted potential.  She is an adventurer at heart and is shown early on to be very proficient with guns.  It would have been great to have her get a more proactive role in the film, but she's just kinda there.  She doesn't contribute anything to the story besides being a source of conflict with her husband.  Plus there's a very weird moment where she goes nuts while scuba diving that has no bearing whatsoever on the rest of the movie.

Finally, the 3rd act could have gotten a little weirder.  I would have like to see the scientists continue to experiment on the Creature. This movie is plenty weird for 1956, but in a perfect would, I would have liked to see this story go even further off the rails.


Verdict:

The Creature Walks Among Us is a very strange movie and the best of the Black Lagoon trilogy.  It has a lot of fun moments, interesting characters, and a bonkers story.  I wish Marcia had been used better and that the movie had dialed up the insanity even more, but it's still got it going on.

 7/10: Good 

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