"Revenge of the Creature" (1955) d/ Jack Arnold

Tonight, we'll cover the 1955 3D sequel to the 1954 3D original (Revenge was also the only 3D feature released that year, coincidentally), the only time in cinema history that's ever occurred, and the first of two sequels spawned by the frenetic enthusiasm that audiences displayed for the Gill-Man at the box office. Jack Arnold returned to the director's chair here, and B-movie hero, Mr. Shirley Temple, John Agar himself, takes the lead, with cerebral blonde, Lori Nelson, appearing as his romantic interest/ Gill-Man bait. Ricou Browning also returns as the Creature, who's undergone a few noticeable cosmetic alterations, but remains ever ready to face palm the nearest unlucky devil with webbed authority.


"You feel lucky enough to light that Bunsen burner...well, do ya...punk?"
Despite the previous year's expedition to the Amazon ending in tragic failure, Lucas (Nestor Paiva) is back in the Green Inferno with a new boat, and a new crew of scientists determined to capture the fabled amphibious monster that dwells in the Black Lagoon, for obvious research purposes, but more so, for lucrative ticket sales at Ocean Harbor, an early Sea World-esque water park, where tourists will pay long green to gawk at the fishy fella from behind protective aquarium glass. The capture in question, takes all of fifteen minutes, thanks to an environmentally sound technique called "dynamite fishing", that leaves the titular Creature in a comatose dead man's float amid hundreds of belly up fish, ready to be exploited, errr, studied in far off,  sunny Florida. Once the experts have walked him back to consciousness, shark-style, with only one meathead casualty (John Bromfield), it's chains and shackle, feeder fish out of metal cages, and Pavlovian conditioning with a nifty cattle prod to the midsection for the new specimen. Ah, those early days of science...


"I hope you've brought your snorkel tonight, darling...", quips Clete (John Agar).
Tired of being labonza-prodded with 'behave yourself' voltage, and being chained to the bottom of the fish tank like an amphibious Kunta Kinte, Gill-Man finally busts the fuck loose like Richard Pryor, amid screaming, terrified tourists, tipping over cars, and generally exacting rampaging Devonian era revenge, before diving into the ocean and swimming home...well, not exactly. Instead, the scaly fiend swims towards St. Augustine, where he does some peep-tomming on Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson) in the shower, but respectfully waits until she's decently clothed again (laying the whack on her improbably-named dog, Chris(!), in the meantime) at a nearby Lobster House bandstand party, before carrying her off, screaming, into the night. Helen's colleague/beau, Professor Clete Ferguson (John Agar), is totes jelly(fish) at the notion of an inter-species interloper, filling him full of lead, and forcing him to repeat his half-dead float from the original picture, in the end.


The Gill-Man(Ricou Browning) can totally see you in your new underthings. And he doesn't much hate it.
Look for the first screen appearance of Clint Eastwood in a cameo as a scatterbrained lab assistant with mice in his pockets. I vividly recall New York station WPIX broadcasting this one in 3D in the early eighties, and being front row and center of the big floor model tv in our parlor, in red and blue glasses, with one hand on the pause button of my Panasonic top loader, to remove the commercials in between. Like many sequels before and since, Revenge doesn't nearly hold up in comparison with it's groundbreaking predecessor, but remains packed with enough nostalgic 50's B-movie monster mayhem to stay entertainingly buoyant on a cinematic ocean of also-ran's. A recommended cult classic that amasses an impressive three Wops, in review, and demands a spot on the shelves of every self-respecting horror dvd/BR enthusiast.


"Only youuuuuu...can make this world seem riiiiight..."

"Creature From The Black Lagoon" (1954) d/ Jack Arnold

Can't believe I hadn't covered this one over the past eight years. You can thank the Doctor for my finally getting around to reviewing it,  having thrown me his copy earlier and sparking my interest in revisiting the legendary Universal trilogy, and of course, I'll be reviewing them all here, just for you, because I think youse guys are just swell. If I had a dollar for every time I'd seen or heard rumors of a Hollywood remake of this groundbreaking fifties horror/sci-fi classic dating back to the seventies (and every damned time it's always with names like Landis, Carpenter, Jackson, and Del Toro being thrown around and getting guys like me amped up for nothing), I could probably buy KFC for a family of six in South Africa and get change back for smokes.


"There's some rear-projected trouble ahead, fellas..."
While sifting through the jungle sediments, Dr. Maia (Antonio Moreno) stumbles upon the mummified mer-mitt of a man-monster from the Devonian Age, and while he dashes back to civilization for financial backing and to assemble an archaeological team for the forthcoming dig, something similarly scaly and sinister is seen tearing through the tent and two of Maia's Moe-wigged hired hands back in the Amazon. With a team that includes David (Richard Carlson), his inspirational squeeze Kay (Julie Adams), their unscrupulous boss Mark (Richard Denning) and native river boat captain, Lucas (Nestor Paiva) among its ranks, Maia returns to the green inferno where the previous camp yields the mangled bodies of the Indio men.


Clearly, sometimes, it's good to be a Gill-man (Rico Browning).
Watching from the murky depths of the nearby Black Lagoon, the Gill-man sets out to fatally face palm the adventurers one by one, only occasionally pausing to take a fishy gill-breather or to admire Kay's leggy figure as she cools off in the river against the advice of everyone, just like a dizzy dame. When David suggests that they vacate the premises on the threat of a steadily growing body count, Mark throws caution to the wind on the hopes that he can cash in on the prehistoric predator, even briefly trapping it in a makeshift cage after drugging the tributary with poison, before receiving a fatal underwater C.T.F.O. from Gilly for his reckless transgressions against nature and the environment. It's when the amphibian tries to make off with Kay to his secret lagoon cave that David and company adjust his amorous attitude with a barrage of bullets that send him floating lifelessly to the bottom, in the end.


"I nearly broke my leg climbing on board, you guys got another bump of that rotenone stuff to take the edge off?"
Creature's 3D release in 1954 was confined to a run of metropolitan theater venues, with the polarized light-based gimmick having pretty much run its course a year earlier(I've got a copy of the anaglyph style red and blue method from an eighties release of the film, and it's not amazing to watch, unless you're gunning for a headache in the first place), as the small town cinemas often chose to show the movie two-dimensionally instead. The Gill-Man or Creature itself, stands as the last of the meritorious class of Universal Monsters, and arguably the finest, with its elaborate makeup, designed by Disney's Millicent Patrick and brought to horrific life by Bud Westmore, that was truly revolutionary to the genre. Whenever this one turned up on television as a kid, I could count on my dad assuming the position on the couch perpendicular to mine in the living room to watch it with me, though it pales in comparison to the Wolfman in his eyes, all-time favorite to this very day. Sixty years have left some of its minor flaws more obvious to the modern eye, but a classic monster movie like this, perpetual and iconic, surely merits four Wops, anyway.


"I kiss like a horny gourami, Kay, so lay some lip on me... How about it."

Tarantula(1955)d/Jack Arnold

Horror of the fifties,thy name is big ass bugs.In the Atom Age,all sorts of denizens of the insect world grew to size "Holy Shit!" and terrorized mankind.From ants in Them! to mantids in The Deadly Mantis,most of natures nasties exacted multi-legged retribution for man's scientific curiosity on the silver screen.Perfect drive in fodder if you think about it...you and your chick in a roadster,chicks naturally hate bugs,giant cinematic bug creeps chick out and into your lap,where,inevitably,much necking and heavy petting will commence.I'm all about that sort of thing myself.Hell,I've even used the "blue ball" excuse that probably pre-dates the drive in era by fifty years or so.This entry is one of my personal favorites of the sub-genre for obvious reasons...

You know,I'll bet that thing is gonna get outta there later on...
The good professor Deemer(Leo G. Carroll)has been working on solving the world's hunger problems by developing a nutrient formula that causes giantism in animals out in his southwestern desert laboratory.You'd think he'd be more concerned with making communists smaller instead,but we continue...He's succeeded in growing guinea pigs,rats...tarantulas(insert incidental theremin here)...but failed in administering his serum to two of his assistants.Doesn't have the same effect on humans,apparently.One of which turns up very deformed and very dead,baffling authorities,but the other,he's deformed and PISSED OFF.He pays Deemer a social call,going knuckle up with the prof,injecting him with his own serum,smashing valuable equipment,starting a raging lab fire,and freeing a giant tarantula who legs it the hell outta there into the scalding sand.Dr.Hastings(50's journeyman John Agar)has a two-fold problem:figuring out the weirdness going on out in the desert and getting into Deemer's new assistant Stephanie Clayton's(Mara Corday)big cotton fifties britches.

The monstrous mygalamorph sets its eight eyes on some horses to chow down on.
When some horses turn up as bone dry skeletons with strange white puddles nearby,Hastings deducts that perhaps not all of Deemer's lab animals died in the fire.In the meantime,the professor's physical appearance is steadily gaining in whacked-out zaniness,due to his involuntary nutrient injection,much to his dismay and our chagrin.The escaped spider,now over 100 feet,has focused its venom-dripping chelicerae on human prey,dining on some hobos,truck drivers,and state troopers who learn the hard way that the beast is impervious to shotgun blasts and even dynamite!The boisterous beast even returns to the scene of the crime,pulverizing Deemer's pad,taking down the gruesomely deformed professor with it.Things look bleak for the small town as the tarantula converges upon them,until it learns a valuable lesson about humanity:If you piss us off,we'll call in Clint Eastwood in a jet fighter armed with napalm.

The town trembles in terror as the towering tarantula traipses towards them.
Along with Earth vs. The Spider,always my favorite among the many atom age fifties nature gone awry flicks.The film's producers used air jets to get the live action tarantula to move in the directions they wanted it to over the miniature set,which probably stressed her the fuck out in the process,as blasts of air from above do not occur in nature.Yeah,sorry,I've always been a hopeless arachnophile,if you hadn't already guessed from earlier posts.Anyway,to all my readers,I wish you a happy holiday today with friends,family,and loved ones,but know this:if the tryptophan in your turkey dinner caused you to doze off around me,I'd probably take a Sharpie marker to your face.I'm a lot of fun like that.Tarantula rates:

Feeling lucky,spider?!!Well,are ya?