The Alligator People (1959)

Who's In It: Beverly Garland (My Three Sons, Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), Bruce Bennett (The New Adventures of Tarzan), Lon Chaney Jr (The New Adventures of the Wolf Man; just kidding), George Macready (Tarzan's Peril), and Richard Crane (Rocky Jones: Space Ranger)

What It's About: A newlywed woman (Garland) searches for her husband (Crane) who disappeared on their honeymoon, tracking him to a gothic mansion in a remote swamp where terrible experiments are being performed.

How It Is: The Alligator People is a strong mystery in a cool setting. A lot of the acting and characters aren't especially memorable, but Garland is quite good as the tenacious woman relentlessly searching for her missing husband. And Lon Chaney Jr is effective as an unpredictable, gator-hating Cajun. The gator-people makeup is effective too and even sort of terrifying. I suspect that some will find the final transformation silly, but I like it a lot.

The only thing I don't care for in the film is the weird and unnecessary framing sequence in which Garland has repressed her memories of the swamp and even has a new name. That raises a lot of questions that the movie doesn't care to answer and also reduces the tension in the main story, because we know how her story ends. But I do like that the framing sequence features Bruce Bennett as one of the doctors examining Garland's character. As Herman Brix, he played one of my favorite film Tarzans.

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 scaly spouses.

Creature (2011)

Who's In It: Mehcad Brooks (True Blood), Serinda Swan (Aphrodite in Percy Jackson, Zatanna on Smallville), Dillon Casey (Nikita), Aaron Hill (Greek), Amanda Fuller (Grey's Anatomy), Pruitt Taylor Vince (True Blood, The Mentalist), Daniel Bernhardt (Parker), and Sid Haig (Spider Baby, Diamonds Are Forever, Jason of Star Command).

What It's About: A group of young people head out to the woods to... hey, wait! Where you going?! No, seriously. Just stick with me...

How It Is: My heart sank at the opening shot in Creature when I saw a truck full of three couples heading into the Louisiana bayou for a vacation. I barely made it through Shark Night; I didn't think I was ready for another just like it so soon. On the surface, the main characters in Creature look like all those other cabin-in-the-woods stereotypes. There's the obnoxious guy who's going to get everyone into trouble (Casey), there's the slutty girl (Fuller), the virginal girl (Lauren Schneider), the jock (Hill), the token black guy (Brooks), and the token black guy's super hot girlfriend (Swan). All that was missing was a nerdy stoner. But as the characters kept talking, I realized that something different was going on.

For one thing, Casey and Fuller play brother and sister and not an especially annoying couple as I first thought. It makes sense that they have similar personalities coming from the same family. And that both of them are single, because the only people who can sort of tolerate them are each other. But more importantly, Brooks and Hill are playing Marines and it doesn't take long to realize that they're smart, serious ones. Casey and Fuller are wild cards in the group, but it's quickly obvious that Creature isn't about a bunch of stupid kids getting into trouble. It's about a group of friends that actually feels like a real group of friends. I especially like Brooks and Swan who convinced me that they're a normal, healthy couple in love with each other. And the fact that a couple members of the group are highly trained in combat means that this isn't just going to be all screaming and running when the alligator-man shows up.

That's kind of how the whole movie goes. It starts with apparent stereotypes and then reveals them to be honest-for-real characters. There are scary rednecks in this movie (led by the awesome Sid Haig and including the always spooky Pruitt Taylor Vince), but they have genuine motivations and complicated feelings about what they're doing. Even the alligator-man (Bernhardt) has a touching - though sick and creepy - backstory that adds facets to him as a character.

I'm in danger of overselling it, so let me dial back a little. Creature is super cheesy in places. The rubber, alligator-man suit looks cool, but there's no getting around that it's a rubber suit. And director Fred Andrews loves a slow motion shot a lot more than I do. There's also some really disturbing stuff in the movie. It earns its R rating not just on what you see and hear, but on tone and theme, too. It's neither a completely serious horror film nor a fun homage to B-movies; it walks a thin line somewhere between those two. It does so well, but what it's going for is a specific enough thing that I suspect not everyone will dig it. For me though, I was pleasantly shocked by how much I enjoyed it.

Rating: Four out of five totally beautiful couples whom I actually hoped would live.

Happy Halloween!

[Image trick-or-treated from the Grace Goods blog]

Have a safe night, everyone! But not too safe.

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Who's in it?: Ken Clark (South Pacific); Yvette Vickers (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman); Jan Shepard (a couple of Elvis movies: King Creole and Paradise, Hawaiian Style); Michael Emmet (Night of the Blood Beast); Tyler McVey (Night of the Blood Beast); Bruno VeSota (Dementia)

What's it about?: Giant leeches. Attacking.

How is it?: Pretty uninspired for the most part. The main characters are a game warden (Clark), his girlfriend (Shepard), and her scientist father (McVey) who are investigating a report of strange animals attacking a poacher in the Everglades. The warden and scientist do most of the investigating; their girlfriend/daughter mostly makes sandwiches and takes daddy's side over a plan to dynamite the swamp  in order to destroy the unseen creatures. She's a horrible character not because she sides with her father, but because she's never allowed to express why she does. She comes across as nothing more than Daddy's Girl, so I lost all interest in whether or not Clark could repair his relationship with her.

As far as the two men go, though, their argument's one of the high points in the movie. It's not just a single conversation, but an ongoing discussion about ecology that goes through the whole story. Clark feels his main responsibility is to the environment; McVey is mostly concerned with saving human lives. Each man respects the other's opinion, but doesn't waver in his own convictions. I love stories that present both sides of a conflict equally well so that I have to think about which side I support.

A second thing to like about the movie is a subplot around a local business owner (VeSota), his wife (Vickers), and one of his customers/friends (Emmet). VeSota is a big, fat guy who wants to look tough in front of his pals, but sultry Vickers is bored with swamp life and resents her husband for keeping her there. She spends most of her time playing loud music in the bedroom in the back of VeSota's store and inspiring lust in his customers, especially Emmet. There's a steamy, Southern gothic feel to this part of the plot and it gets extra interesting when Vickers and Emmet go missing. The audience knows whether VeSota or the giant leeches are responsible, but the authorities (who mostly disbelieve the poacher's report) don't.

The last good thing I'll say about Attack of the Giant Leeches is about the completely ridiculous monster suits. They're classic in their badness, which makes them a lot of fun.

If I'm honest though, all of that is me grasping for something to like about the movie. It's mostly just people running around the swamp looking for monsters and occasionally being attacked by them. At only 62 minutes, it's still a little long.

Rating: Okay.

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