Retro Review: Creature from the Black Lagoon

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Synopsis
After finding a fossilized hand with webbed fingers, scientists go searching for the rest of the skeleton. And, as luck would have it, there's a living specimen roaming around, and he starts killing members of the group.

Review
The first time I saw this film was about 2 weeks ago, but that creature always freaked me out as a kid. The costume is well done, and from a technical perspective the film is impressive, not only for the creature costume but for the fact that it's worn underwater for swimming scenes as well. There's a lot of underwater footage here, all very well done, and I can only imagine how difficult it must've been to do it. As for the plot/story, it's not bad, though they could've named this one "Creature from the Lagoon of Bad Decisions". The lead character continues to want to go easy on the creature, despite it continuing to kill members of the expedition. There is a member of the group who just wants to shoot it, but unfortunately, doesn't get his way. The body count continues to rise while the lead keeps saying "No, don't kill it."

I found this to be one of the more enjoyable Universal Monster movies I've watched so far. Not only was it technically advanced, it also featured a female lead who, even though she screams a few times and is briefly the "damsel in distress", is also a scientist and someone intelligent. I found that interesting and probably not super common for a 1950s monster movie.

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