Too many fans seem to be blown away

I saw this movie before reading any reviews, and I thought it was very funny. I was very surprised to see the overwhelmingly negative reviews this film received from critics.

It's a feast for the eyes. But what really makes this dramedy work is the acting.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Incest. A touch of cannibalism. A sprinkling of nudity. And a half- man/half-gator creature. Hmmm. Must be the Louisiana Bayou! And so it is! Really. What can you expect from this kind of story. The moral is that you have to go into it expecting what you should be expecting. If you do - and you're not expecting some horror masterpiece - you find a movie that ain't good by a longshot, but that can still pass some time in a way that at least isn't painful.In "Creature" we're following the adventures of six young people (3 male, 3 female) on their way to New Orleans, who stop at a backwoods store and get introduced to a local legend about this creature. The creature has an interesting background. Born (evolved? transformed?) a couple of hundred years before when a brother and sister decided they had to - well - take responsibility for making sure their family continued on. Unfortunately, before they could accomplish this, the sister was eaten by a large white gator, whom the brother then killed. But driven mad by the experience, he proceeded to consume everything in the gator's lair - including his now dead sister. This apparently was enough to transform him into Gator-Man! Gator-Man now keeps the family line going, with the use of nubile young females chosen against their will for this purpose - and, just by happy (or unhappy) coincidence, there are three nubile young females in the movie.You get what you expect. And you should know what you're going to get right off the top. The movie opens with a young woman who goes swimming (stark naked) in a gator-infested swamp. Not surprisingly, we see no more of the young woman after those opening few scenes. That opening is certainly eye catching. The story from then on isn't great. It's not horrible, mind you. I've seen worse. Not unexpectedly, there are a couple of scenes that come across as mildly soft core porn-like, and there is for some reason that I didn't think was necessary a strange, religious cult-like background to the whole thing. And in at least one close up I thought Gator-Man looked surprisingly like the Gorn who did battle with Captain Kirk in the original Star Trek. There's a couple of twists involved - including one that keeps the movie going when you thought it had ended (and I'm still not sure whether that was good or bad!)The strength of this movie was actually in the performances. The cast was (to me at least) completely unknown, but they all did a good job. They didn't just go through the motions. They were taking this seriously enough, which must have been a challenge at times. I thought that the three young women especially did a great job of showing very believable terror at their plight. The performances made this rather silly story watchable. (3/10)

The opening sequence with Ophelia's swim in the swamp marks this movie as an exploitation effort: full nudity followed by gore and death.The scene then jump shifts to three upscale city couples traveling in an expensive SUV to the backwoods swamps in Louisiana. The six rich kids stop at a general store. They show their general disrespect for local traditions and people. The four men at the general store are depicted as inbred, uneducated, violent, and unsanitary.The good old boys tell a story of the Boutine family, which was dying out some decades ago. The story culminates with the almost wedding of brother and sister (Grimley and Caroline Boutine), who are the last possible breeders in the clan. The ceremony is interrupted by a legendary gator, Lockjaw, who eats the bride. The groom is discouraged by this. He kills the gator, then eats it, including parts of his almost bride. Following one of the clichés of cannibalism, Grimley absorbs some of the strengths of Lockjaw, becoming a man/monster.Let's have a moment of silence for that massive 'jump the shark' incident.The local good old boys warn the six city folk to respect the tradition, which is not explained in any detail. The city folk don't show respect, of course, and the locals attempt to force the tradition on them.Do any of the city youngsters survive this elimination derby and get home? -----Scores-----Cinematography: 6/10 Looked professional at least part of the time.Sound: 7/10 Not too bad.Acting: 4/10 Mehcad Brooks seemed way too old for the part; on the other hand, he was the best actor in the film by far. That in itself was another problem: why would such a level-headed young man get into this mess? Most of the other actors played caricatures, particularly Sid Haig. All of the actors playing swamp folk gave terrible performances.Screenplay: 3/10 The dialog the actors were given was mostly poor. The exposition of motivation left a lot to be desired: why did anyone do any of the things they did in this movie? The worst for me was during the Niles-Lockjaw fight. There is no way that Niles could survive even one hit from the monster, much less 15 or so. Ridiculous.SFX: 3/10 The creature effects were modestly convincing; they were reminiscent of the Creature in the Black Lagoon (1954). The gore effects were not convincing at all.

Six kids are on a roadtrip to New Orleans. They include 2 sets of brothers and sisters, and 2 couples. One set of siblings are single. The brother is the guy in charge of sorts. They stop at a rest stop along the way somewhere in Louisiana. There they meet 3 rednecks. The rest stop is also a museum of sorts dedicated to the local monster said to roam the area- a human/alligator mutant that came about after the last member of an inbred family devoured a scary alligator that ate his sister/bride-to-be. The kids decide to visit the house where all this happened and to camp nearby for the night.Of course that's when the creature goes after them, and so do the crazy townfolk who worship the creature and try to find a bride for it. The couples try to hook up, the single girl tries to take advantage of a drunk girl and later of her brother. There's a bit of twist in terms of the intentions of two of the kids.The first hour of Creature is entertaining. That's when everything is setup up. Our initial lead is a funny and likable guy. Things also become quite sexy. Unfortunately during the last 30 minutes the movie loses direction during the resolution of it all. People start running around, the creature pops up here and there scaring people and occasionally killing someone. And the least likable or interesting couple will turn out to be the heroes.Creature has a decent story and script but they needed more funds to make it work. Direction doesn't do the story justice, at the same time, it could have been much worse, too. Overall, I liked this movie more than I should have. Credit goes two likable main characters and a story that's better than what this movie manages to make of it.

I love to give what appears to be an Independent Horror film a shot, but movies like this, further make me want to research a ton before wasting my time with such dreck. This movie could have been decent enough, if it played out with the usual silly city kids play tough, go to the backwoods and have to fight for their lives against a local legend that lives.Especially the old guy in monster suit routine, bringing back memories of past without overwhelming digital of today.Instead we get a piece of flotsom that again makes our neighbors down South, all come across as inbred ignorant savages, worthy of death plus we get Incest spotlighted as just another passing fantasy on the human development chart of the 21st Century.Add bad acting, a monster that kicks everyone's rear, yet somehow cannot seem to take down the so-called hero of the story, (even after relentlessly pounding him in the ground in one sequence.) and overabundance of nudity to cover story flaws and boredom, you have a thriller.Then to further put the knife in, you have the DVD Extra's where the cast and crew pat themselves on the back, like they have just performed in a Oscar category flick, add on one of the actors talking about how Hot he found the Incest filming scene was, and you want to take a shower and apologize to your partner for the mistake of renting this trash!