Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)

I don’t know if this pick is a cheat or not. While I must have seen Creature From the Black Lagoon on television as a kid, I have no actual memory of doing so. It seems like such a weird gap in my horror viewing. Either way, I’m going to take my lack of memory as licence to review it this month.

Having seen so many of the classic Universal monster movies and their contemporaries when I was a child means that I’m often unsure of what I’ve actually watched or just read about. There are doubtless other classics I could be reviewing if not for some misguided notion that I’ve seen them. Maybe I’ll throw caution to the wind and include more next year.

Creature From the Black Lagoon is available on DVD.

Synopsis

A palaeontologist investigating a partial fossil of a mysterious humanoid amphibian teams up with a couple of ichthyologists researching lungfish for an expedition down the Amazon. They believe that some aquatic offshoot of the human race once lived around here, and hope to find fossil evidence. The origin of the fossils they’ve already found seems to be the Black Lagoon, a place of great natural beauty but with an evil reputation.

Of course, the creature they’re looking for turns out to be anything other than extinct, and the expedition members come to violent disagreement over whether to capture or kill it. This argument becomes all the more intense when the creature dams their boat into the lagoon and starts picking off expedition members.

Who will prevail in this battle between man and fishman? Honestly, given the actions of the expedition, it’s hard not to root for the creature.

General Thoughts

The film begins with a bombastic voiceover about evolution. Weirdly, however, it also mixes in quotations from the Book of Genesis. I wonder if this was to help sell the film to religious viewers.

Much of the action takes place underwater, and the producers clearly wanted to get the best value out of their waterproof cameras. The problem is that the water is murky, and some fight scenes are obfuscated by great clouds of silt thrown up in all the tussling. On the plus side, it does mean that some of the initial shots of the Creature are blurry, as those of cryptids should be.

The Creature’s rubber suit looks pretty good, especially in the water, and I can only imagine what a challenge swimming in it was. It doesn’t look quite as convincing on land, however, and some of the close-ups of the Creature’s face and glassy eyes are ill-advised.

One weird detail is how the characters take time to talk about the importance of decompression when scuba diving, demonstrating the process of rising to the surface in stages. This felt like set up for some big climactic scene, but it is never mentioned again. Maybe the filmmakers were just worried about the short run time and needed some padding.

You can tell The Creature From the Black Lagoon was shot in 3D from the occasional scene that thrusts objects out towards the viewer. It’s not as egregious as in some other 3D films, but it does lead to some weird moments, especially with the harpoon gun.

Verdict

While it follows the general formula of earlier Universal monster movies, Creature From the Black Lagoon is weaker than the best of its predecessors. I have to admire Universal for creating something original after drawing on gothic horror for so long, but the story they’ve constructed around their monster isn’t terribly exciting. The main problem is that it simply feels padded, even at 80 minutes.

The foundation is fine, with the expedition into uncharted areas of the Amazon and the simmering rivalries between academics, although the film doesn’t really come alive until the Creature takes the spotlight. Even after that, however, the film goes around in circles, with the Creature and the expedition trading tit-for-tat attacks with little variation. We know how things are going to play out, but it takes far too long to get there.

The Creature itself is a terrific monster. It may be derivative of the Deep Ones from Lovecraft’s “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, but the presentation is significantly different. In the tradition of the best Universal monsters, it is a tragic figure, fighting for its life against human interlopers.

Overall, The Creature From the Black Lagoon is a mild disappointment. A tighter script and a bit less gratuitous underwater photography might have made it a true classic. As things stand, it’s an average horror romp that relies completely on a standout monster. An interesting piece of cinematic history, but not the most exciting monster movie you could watch this month.

The October Horror Movie Challenge

Please do join in and share your own thoughts with us about this or any other films as the month goes on. You can usually find us on BlueSky, Reddit, Discord, or lurking in the dark corners of your home.

If you would like to play along at home, my provisional selections are:

Heretic (USA, 2024)
The Sadness (Taiwan, 2021)
The Uninvited (USA, 1944)
The Lodge (UK/USA, 2019)
WolfCop (Canada, 2014)
Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (Czechoslovakia, 1970)
The Monkey (USA, 2025)
Sister Midnight (India/UK, 2024)
Roadgames (Australia, 1981)
Nightmare City (Italy, 1985)
Dangerous Animals (Australia, 2025)
Dead Talents Society (Taiwan, 2024)
Winterbeast (USA, 1992)
Byzantium (UK/Ireland, 2013)
The Ugly Stepsister (Norway, 2025)
A Page of Madness (Japan, 1926)
Heart Eyes (USA, 2025)
Grafted (New Zealand, 2024)
Arrebato (Spain, 1979)
Hatching (Finland, 2022)
Abigail (USA, 2024)
Ganja & Hess (USA, 1973)
The Devil’s Bath (Austria, 2025)
Pieces (Spain, 1982)
Infested (France, 2023)
Best Wishes to All (Japan, 2022)
A Cat in the Brain (Italy, 1990)
Enys Men (UK, 2022)
Creature From the Black Lagoon (USA, 1954)
Perewangan (Indonesia, 2024)
Bring Her Back (Australia, 2025)

A Final Note

If you have been enticed here by these posts, please do look around at some of our other film reviews. We also have a podcast, called The Good Friends of Jackson Elias, which occasionally covers horror films. If this appeals, you might want to check out some of the following episodes.