Creature From The Black Lagoon movie review

In 1954 Universal released Creature From The Black Lagoon, which started the last of the original Universal Monsters series. The Creature was also the beginning and the defining movie of the 1950s creature features, and we are still seeing its impact on modern movies like The Shape of Water. The Creature From The Black Lagoon was also shot in 3D, which was at it's height of popularity at the time. The movie starred two big names at Universal pictures at the time the beautiful starlet Julia Adams, and Richard Carlson who was famous for playing scientists in science fiction movies at the time. The Creature From The Black Lagoon is a story about a scientist who finds a fossilized hand of an unknown creature while doing a research dig in the Amazon. He is able to get two of his friends, talented young scientists to join him in the expedition to find the full fossils of the creature, and he talked his boss into funding the expedition. So they set off into the Amazon to uncover the fossils. But as they are digging they fail to find anything, and it is decided, that part of the limestone had broken off drifted down river into a lagoon, known as the Black Lagoon. They not only find that they were right that the stone had drifted into the lagoon but, they also found out that the creature still lives. The boss of the scientists decides that they need to kill or capture the creature, and just to document it and photograph it isn't enough, they need to bring back the actual creature. Thus, starts a conflict, where it is man vs beast, and then as a side plot, the creature falls for the beautiful woman scientist, and tries to steal her. This movie is absolutely amazing. The cinematography is absolutely beautiful, it looks clean and clear, the underwater shots are absolutely amazing, and cutting edge at the time. The creature design is iconic, and still recognizable today. It doesn't matter that we all know that it is a man in a rubber suit playing the creature, what matters, is that he works, that he looks good, that with a little suspension of disbelief he is believable. The music is memorable and beautiful, the creature theme is harsh and fits the feel of the movie, but there is also some very beautiful moving music pieces as well. The characters are all really well cast, and they play their parts very well, and convincingly. The underwater shots are absolutely breath taking, especially when Julia Adam's character is swimming, and the creature discovers her and falls in love with her, the beautiful, sensual swimming scene is absolutely beautiful. I will say again, that this movie really has very few flaws, the story is solid, the characters are well played, the Creature is amazing, this movie made a huge impact on science fiction and horror movies, and on pop culture. The Creature From The Black Lagoon along with all of the original Universal Monster movies is a very iconic classic, and very few critics or fans have anything negative to say about this legendary classic. The Creature is also one of the most marketed monster in movie history. The legacy collection of the Creature is only three films, but they are all such beautiful classics that really set the bar for what a science fiction creature feature should look like. Would I recommend this movie, yes wholeheartedly I recommend this movie. Every person should see this amazing movie! This and all of the classic Universal movies rank among the greatest movies ever made in the horror and science fiction genres. I think it is important to view classic movies, and to appreciate the art form, there is something magical about black and white movies, that seems to be lacking in modern movies. These classic movies make me feel things that modern movies never will, I get that they are not for everyone, because I do get that a lot of people these days kind of need their hand held through movies, and they need everything to be graphic, detailed, and spelled out for them, but in these old movies, the viewer was relied upon to use their imagination, to infer things rather than just be shown things. Horror in those days didn't need to be graphic dismemberment of the victim, they used shadows, they insinuated that something horrifying was happening, without having to show you, this is a classic type of horror, an artistic, classy style of horror, they didn't need the gross out to get the effect, and I appreciate that. I don't think that it was that audiences were simpler, I think that they were more willing suspend their disbelief, and let their imaginations carry them away, and feel and see things that there was no need to show them. This is the same thing that writers like H.P. Lovecraft used, with his "the creature was too horrifying to describe" technique that he employed, the same idea is true of classic horror movies. Sorry to go off on a tangent, but classic horror movies are a deep passion of mine, and I hope that I can share with you some of that passion, and help you to view these movies from a different perspective and mindset, to suspend your disbelief and let you imagination take flight. I suppose to sum it up, not only do I recommend this movie, I insist that you hunt down a copy and view it for yourself, Universal has released some beautifully restored versions of the Creature From The Black Lagoon, and it is definitely worth your time to see.