Creature

Creature; science-fiction horror, USA, 1985; D: William Malone, S: Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Robert Jaffe, Diane Salinger, Annette McCarthy, Marie Laurin, Klaus Kinski

In the future, German mining company "Richter Dynamics" excavates a strange tube with a sleeping alien creature on Titan. A few hours later, the only survivor from there crashes with his shuttle into the space station "Concorde". American company "NTI" sponsors an expedition to Titan. But once the spaceship lands, it sinks in the ground and remains stuck. The crew discovers that the alien killed all German miners there, except the eccentric Hans. The alien is able to enter the brains of people and then make them his slaves who help him kill the others. Everyone gets massacred except Davison, Beth and Perkins. When the creature isn't killed through electric shocks, they destroy it thanks to a bomb, repair the ship and leave Titan.

Science-fiction horror film "Creature", also known as "Titan Find", is a rump version of Scott's "Alien", both in quality and (limited) budget, yet its audacity in tackling such a purely B-film plot secured it cult status. The special effects are surprisingly good, the cinematography is solid and manages to secure a few tight moments of suspense thanks to a few tricks with shadows, an occasional idea is original (the scene where a naked woman is standing in front of an astronaut in a spacesuit, on Titan!) whereas director William Malone aims to openly satisfy the viewers' attraction towards obscure, non-standard stories containing scary monsters, the latter not being shown until the end, when it slightly sabotages the mood by revealing it to be a man in a rubber suit. Most of the characters are simply extras, except for a stand-out cameo by Klaus Kinski as Hans, who delivers another eccentric performance ("We found...a child's butterfly collection... but some of its butterflies...were not too friendly"). The sudden scenes of splatter violence (the scariest one is when 'zombie' Jon attacks a woman, and she puts her hand on his decomposing face, which causes his lower lip to fall off), trash and bland dialogues cement the cheap tone, yet even 'guilty pleasure' shows signs of a brave film maker.

Grade:+