Throwback Thursday: Creature (1985)

Written By: Ken Hulsey
 
 Director William Malone doesn't seem to ever be interested in a project unless it has been done by someone else first. His career is littered with films that are clones of other films and TV series based on movies. His resume contains the remake of House on Haunted Hill, The Ring clone Fear.com, and of course the Alien rip-off, Creature.

Creature is a bland mix of bad acting, reworked ideas from other sci-fi films, gore, and late night pay cable adult fair. Even the last two elements do little to make the film interesting. The whole project has the feel of a movie you would see on HBO at 3 o'clock in the morning.

As stated before the viewer will find very little original ideas in this films story. A rag tag group of explorers is sent to the planet Titan in an attempt to beat a rival German company to excavation that could lead to large profits. Upon arrival the group finds that the German company had beaten them to the site, but their crew had mysteriously vanished. The uncertainty of the mission leads to several crew members "hooking up" to get their minds off things. While some crew members are "getting friendly" others a falling victim to a mysterious space monster that looks, acts, and kills just like the one from Alien.

Toward the end of the film is one of the biggest rip-offs of all time. While trying to come up with ideas of how to kill the Creature Beth Sladen mentions seeing a film made in the 1950s (The Thing From Another World) where a group of soldiers trapped in a remote polar base use electricity to kill a monster vegetable from outer space. The next scene plays out exactly the same way the climax of the classic film does shot by shot. The film truly beats you over the head with ideas stolen from other films.

This film is a turkey from start to finish. The adult content and gore may be enough to keep many horror fans tuned in for the entire film, but there is little else here to see. The effects as a whole are not bad. The acting is on par with cable porn. The story, as I mention above, has been a dozen times before in better movies. If you are a fan of bad movies then I recommend seeing Creature. Otherwise watch at you own risk.

Creature (1985)
 AKA: The Titan Find, Titan Find
 TransWorld Entertainment
 
 Directed By: William Malone
 Written By: William Malone & Alan Reed
 
 Cast:
 Stan Ivar as Mike Davison
 Wendy Schaal as Beth Sladen
 Lyman Ward as David Perkins
 Robert Jaffe as Jon Fennel
 Diane Salinger as Melanie Bryce
 Annette McCarthy as Dr. Wendy H. Oliver
 Marie Laurin as Susan Delambre
 Klaus Kinski as Hans Rudy Hofner
 John Stinson as Astronaut #1
 Jim McKeny as Astronaut #2
 Buckley Norris as Concord technician #1
 Michael Griswold as Concord technician #2
 David Moses as Mission Coordinator
 
 Runtime: 97 Minutes
 Country: USALanguage: English
 Color: Color
 Sound: Dolby Stereo