We open with a shot of a swamp, and it looks just right; we see algae, mud, lots of drooping, overgrown branches, and dead tree stumps rising out of the scummy water. A woman then strips completely naked and goes for a swim, because, obviously, that’s what you do in the middle of a swamp. As she bobs blissfully, the gigantic, scaly tale of some alligator creature slithers behind a log and into the water. The music, already tense, crescendos expectantly. A sudden flash of reptilian scales, and the woman is dragged underwater. After a moment of silence, she surfaces in a panic and swims for shore. She tries to claw her way onto the marshy land, but she can’t move – her legs have been bitten off well above the knees. She becomes limp as the camera backs away dramatically, revealing the water turning red with blood. Chords strike insistently as the screen cuts to black and the title “Creature” appears.

We’re now on a lone road deep in the backwoods of Louisiana. A car full of twentysomethings speeds into view – and into the realm of tried and true horror movie clichés, because what story like this doesn’t begin with a car full of twentysomethings in the middle of nowhere? They’re on their way to New Orleans, but of course, the driver takes a shortcut and has gotten them lost. The driver remains cool about it, although there is the sense that he’s a fifteen-year-old trapped in a young man’s body. This would be Oscar (Dillon Casey). He’s travelling with his sister, Karen (Lauren Schneider), and a group of his friends. These would be Randy (Aaron Hill), his girlfriend, Beth (Amanda Fuller), Randy’s sister, Emily (Serinda Swan), and her boyfriend, Niles (Mehcad Brooks). Emily and Niles spend an awful lot of time professing their love for each other, which is actually a refreshing departure; movies like this tend to be all about casual sex.

Anyway, they make a pit stop at a local convenience store/monster museum run by reliable hillbilly stereotypes. The leader, played by horror veteran Sid Haig, is named Chopper, which is about as good a name as any considering the kind of movie this is. As the girls are away answering the call of nature, the boys – Oscar in particular – are enticed by a tourist trap that plays into the local legend of an inbred man named Grimley (Daniel Bernhardt), who was said to have gone insane and mutated into a flesh-eating monster after his sister was taken by an albino alligator. Chopper happily draws out a map to what it said to be Grimley’s cabin, known as “the house built ... out of blood!” Our six friends go to that location, and indeed, a dilapidated cabin sits there like a rotten log. They set up camp, and as the night passes, they get drunk and stoned. Little do they realize that something is stalking them off in the distance....

For the first forty-five minutes or so, I was willing to go along with “Creature.” It reveled heedlessly in its preposterous clichés, the actors seemed to be enjoying themselves, and there was nudity, gore, and even the beginnings of a drunken lesbian love scene. But as it ventured into darker and more ridiculous territory during the second half, it grew increasingly tasteless until it completely stopped being fun. I think it started with the flashback sequence featuring Grimley and his sister; I can’t speak for all horror audiences, but I personally don’t find backwoods incest all that amusing, not even if the scene is gleefully written and shot as if it came from the pages of a dime-store romance novel. It only became less amusing when it carried over into the present day sequences, specifically during a scene when a voyeur with a camera is masturbated by a member of his family.

The title character, which even in shadow looks like an elaborate Halloween costume coated in slime, ties into a subplot involving none other than a religious cult. All the visual and behavioral hallmarks are there – the victim tied to a sacrificial altar, the bottles of holy water, the circle of disciples, the prayers to God, the boisterous sermonizing about blood and family and His will – and yet the true nature of the cult and its dogma eludes me. So too does its connection to the creature, although I think I got the gist of it. I suppose it doesn’t really matter, given that potential audiences will only care about the blood and guts. But you know me; I prefer to know what’s going on and why, no matter how silly it is. If you’re thinking that I’m missing the point, keep in mind that I’m the guy who gave passing grades to “Piranha 3D,” "Hatchet" and “The Graves.”

The final scenes involve a lot of rolling around in the mud and slow motion shots of the creature emerging from the ground, the latter a technique typically reserved for direct-to-DVD films made on infinitesimal budgets. Indeed, the more I think about “Creature,” the more amazing it seems that it found its way into theaters. I’ll give you a brief run at some sleazy horror festival, where audiences consist of slasher fanatics and scream queens. But I cannot envision the general public paying to see this at their local multiplex. I would wager that most people will not even know that it exists, let alone that it’s playing. I think the real issue here is that the filmmakers don’t know the difference between the campy and the unsavory. With one, you’re allowed to put your brain on autopilot and have fun. With the other, you notice all the faults, and you squirm in your seat anxiously awaiting the end of the movie.

- Chris Pandolfi

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