Last week I watched MUTANT aka Forbidden World. Last night I braved CREATURE, another dollop of icky goo thrown together in the Eighties video goldrush.
From the get go when the word Creature appears across the screen as a slowly moving industrial spaceship addles along you know you are in that strange face-hugging world of ALIEN knockoffs.
I don't know why I'm surprised by cheapo film companies ripping off blockbusters like this. I'm so used to it with toys. I suppose it's the amount of effort that must go into a film, even a duff one, that impresses me. There must have been money in it or why bother?
Creature is almost a carbon copy of Alien, with similar props, costumes, roles and above all, story line. Even the music is similar. The movie even starts with the reflection of computer screen data as it does so iconically in Scott's original.
The only real difference is the quality. There isn't any in Creature. Much of it is filmed in darkness, which presumably hid most of the iffy sets and playground effects. Some of the scenes were actually done quite well but these can't save yet another dire xenomorphic xerox from total Giger oblivion.
Sadly the relentlessly pointless chases round the moon base by re-animated crew members and Klaus Kinski's rampant chest fondling got the better of me and I had to put the film into suspended animation about three quarters of the way through. Me and Jonesy went for a brew.
Creature is also known as Titan Find and I suspect like Mutant, it is more interesting to collect the different VHS covers than to actually watch the film.
Have you endured the Creature or been found on Titan readers?
My own suggested name: Titan Your Belt and Don't Pay The Entrance Fee. Yours?
Love your descriptions Woodsy! Have to admit having an even more twisted perspective to these below-the-line IMDb disasters. The more pitiful the execution, the more inexistant the VHS quality - the double the pleasure! It's like watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show for thr nth time. Something about recognizing the standard of quality and its horrendous de-presentation at the same time. The enjoyment of it, as my favourite thinker Slavoj Zizek would phrase it.
ReplyDeleteCheers Arto. Like you say, despite being complete turkeys these old films are part of that video frontier, the wild west of the Eighties when films first started to freely enter homes on VHS, Betamax and V2000. We take it for granted now that movies are available anywhere and anytime but back then it was all new and downright risky if you had the so called nasties in your video shop. Shop keepers went to jail for hiring legitimate videos deemed unlawful by the State. These same films can now be seen on You Tube by anybody!
DeleteThese are the type of movies I watch on Saturday night after the kids are asleep.Add a pizza, some black cherry soda and a cigar and I can forgive the quality of the script or the effects.And yes,I still have them in VHS.At this point in my life, it's sheer nostalgia.
ReplyDeleteSounds like my kinda Saturday night Brian! I'll bring some ribs!
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