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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

Think of a Scooby-Doo episode, only not nearly as scary

By: Randall King

Posted: 09/9/2011 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)

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Rooby-Roo! Where are you?

Movie review

Creature

Starring Mehcad Brooks and Sid Haig
Polo Park, Towne.
18A
95 minutes
1 1/2 out of five

THE most impressive thing about this low-budget creature feature is how first-time director Fred M. Andrews contrives to offer up full-frontal female nudity some 40 seconds into the movie.

Is the scene completely extraneous to the rest of the movie? Yes.

Does anybody care? Probably not.

This low-budget throwaway gives us that old staple plot: Six college student types on a road trip take a detour through Louisiana bayou country when they hear about a local mythological critter -- a half-man/half-alligator known to the locals as Lockjaw.

The back story of said critter is that he was once a man named Grimmly who transformed into a monster a century earlier when his bride-to-be (who also happened to be his sister) was eaten up by an albino alligator.

The gang follow the lead of the goofball Oscar (Dillon Casey), who suggests they go visit Grimmly's shack after learning about his story from the colourful local Chopper (Sid Haig, essentially reprising his role as the crazy shopkeeper from House of 1000 Corpses).

Bad, bad idea.

As luck would have it, the group does boast the presence of a retired Navy Seal named Niles (Mehcad Brooks), who is capable of going toe to claw with a gator monster. But the group also features a pair -- Oscar and his sister Karen (Lauren Schneider) -- who aren't as put off by the whole incest thing as they pretend.

Anyway, as should be obvious to anyone who has seen a bad horror movie in the last 70 years, it's a trap.

At a time when movies are incorporating state-of-the-art technology to create the most graphic gore possible, one might almost be charmed by the crude low-tech on display here. If a rubber foot or a man in a rubber alligator suit make you squeal in terror, you haven't been out much. Certainly, you haven't seen more technically proficient films such as 2006's guilty pleasure Hatchet, from which this film liberally lifts its ideas.

The second most impressive thing about Creature is Sid Haig, a venerable B-movie stalwart whose onscreen juice is stronger than it ever was.

Go see him in 1000 Corpses, or The Devil's Rejects or Spider Baby. Anything but this.

randall.king@freepress.mb.ca

MOVIE REVIEW

Creature

Starring Mehcad Brooks and Sid Haig

Polo Park, Towne.

18A

95 minutes

1 1/2 out of five

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition September 9, 2011 D6

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