 ***PLEASE NOTE: A Blu-ray 3D disc is only compatible with 3D Blu-ray players.*** Storyline: A scientific expedition searching for fossils along the Amazon River discover a prehistoric Gill-Man in the legendary Black Lagoon. The explorers capture the mysterious creature, but it breaks free. The Gill-Man returns to kidnap the lovely Kay, fiancée of one of the expedition, with whom it has fallen in love. Written by Marty McKee Editor's Note: Creature from the Black Lagoon certainly wasn't the first Universal horror movie inspired by Beauty and the Beast. Many of the films in the Essentials Collection, in fact, owe a debt of gratitude to the age-old story of a monster tamed, however briefly, by love. But the early Universal classics have a knack for humanizing their monsters and making it that much more difficult to feel any sort of elation when the Reaper comes to collect, and Creature is no different. Credit where credit's most due: first to the effects masters who created The Gill Man -- and the two men who donned the suit, underwater performer Ricou Browning and on-land actor Ben Chapman -- and second to the cast who sell the terror: Julia Adams as pretty faced damsel-in-distress Kay Lawrence, Richard Carlson as Dr. David Reed, Antonio Moreno as Dr. Carl Maia, Whit Bissell as Dr. Edwin Thompson, and Nestor Paiva as Lucas (a precursor to Robert Shaw's Quint in Jaws). Creature is notable for more than its leading men, its shrill-shrieking beauty and its amphibious beast, though. Director Jack Arnold is patient and shrewd, the film is paced smartly, and the suspense is worth the price of admission alone. (Count the number of shots and scenes that clearly left an impression on a young Steven Spielberg, and picture Jaws without them.) And then there's Chris Mueller, Jr. and Jack Kevan's Gill Man suit. It not only remains an impressive relic of '50s creature feature cinema, its grasping webbed fingers, bulging throat and pulsing gills still look so... alive. Even fifty-eight years later, closeups of the insatiable monster are the stuff of childhood dreams and Sleestak nightmares, regardless of how much the passage of time has diluted the movie's scares. Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, September 28, 2012 -- Take a moment and imagine what modern horror would be without Universal Pictures. Without founder Carl Laemmle and his vision for the future of cinema, or his son Carl Laemmle Jr., who inherited the keys to the studio kingdom in 1928, when talkies were rapidly displacing silent films and promising groundbreaking new strides in moviemaking and the movie-going experience. Without early horror pioneers like Tod Browning, James Whale, Karl Freund, George Waggner or Jack Arnold. Without iconic creature actors Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, Claude Rains, Lon Chaney, Jr., Elsa Lanchester or Ben Chapman. Without Dracula, the indispensable 1931 classic that left a more lasting mark on vampire movies and lore than any other vampire film before or after (save Nosferatu). Or Frankenstein, which pushed boundaries, shocked audiences and has been received with overwhelming enthusiasm ever since. The Mummy, bold in its atmosphere and unforgettable in its tragic romance. The Invisible Man, which features some of the most astonishing special effects and perhaps one of the most unnerving depictions of mounting madness of the era. The Bride of Frankenstein, a complex, wickedly funny, altogether unpredictable sequel that in many regards surpasses its predecessor. The Wolf Man, a once-chilling character drama that examines the frailty of man and the beast within. Phantom of the Opera, though more a twisted love story than a traditional horror picture, a film that nevertheless caused some theaters to stock smelling salts in in the event that a moviegoer fainted upon the removal of the Phantom's mask. Or Creature from the Black Lagoon, which frightened audiences above the water and below with a scaly monster unlike any they had seen before. Needless to say, modern horror, and really the genre in whole, would be completely different than what we know. Creature from the Black Lagoon certainly wasn't the first Universal horror movie inspired by Beauty and the Beast. Many of the films in the Essentials Collection, in fact, owe a debt of gratitude to the age-old story of a monster tamed, however briefly, by love. But the early Universal classics have a knack for humanizing their monsters and making it that much more difficult to feel any sort of elation when the Reaper comes to collect, and Creature is no different. Credit where credit's most due: first to the effects masters who created The Gill Man -- and the two men who donned the suit, underwater performer Ricou Browning and on-land actor Ben Chapman -- and second to the cast who sell the terror: Julia Adams as pretty faced damsel-in-distress Kay Lawrence, Richard Carlson as Dr. David Reed, Antonio Moreno as Dr. Carl Maia, Whit Bissell as Dr. Edwin Thompson, and Nestor Paiva as Lucas (a precursor to Robert Shaw's Quint in Jaws). Creature is notable for more than its leading men, its shrill-shrieking beauty and its amphibious beast, though. Director Jack Arnold is patient and shrewd, the film is paced smartly, and the suspense is worth the price of admission alone. (Count the number of shots and scenes that clearly left an impression on a young Steven Spielberg, and picture Jaws without them.) And then there's Chris Mueller, Jr. and Jack Kevan's Gill Man suit. It not only remains an impressive relic of '50s creature feature cinema, its grasping webbed fingers, bulging throat and pulsing gills still look so... alive. Even fifty-eight years later, closeups of the insatiable monster are the stuff of childhood dreams and Sleestak nightmares, regardless of how much the passage of time has diluted the movie's scares. The Creature of the Black Lagoon is a fitting film to end on. The movie and its amphibious beastie holds up all these years later and represents one of the last great creature features of Hollywood's first major horror boom. The Blu-ray edition is a bit all over the place, though. Its DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix delivers, while its restoration and video transfer are strong but problematic, its 3D experience suffers a bit too (albeit not too much), and its special features are the slimmest in the Universal Classic Monsters: Essentials Collection. It's still worth owning, don't get me wrong, but I suspect most of you will invest more time elsewhere in the eight-film box set. Cast Notes: Richard Carlson (David Reed), Julie Adams (Kay Lawrence [as Julia Adams]), Richard Denning (Mark Williams), Antonio Moreno (Carl Maia), Nestor Paiva (Lucas), Whit Bissell (Dr. Edwin Thompson), Bernie Gozier (Zee), Henry A. Escalante (Chico [as Henry Escalante]). IMDb Rating (04/22/15): 7.0/10 from 15,010 users IMDb Rating (01/16/13): 6.9/10 from 10,313 users
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