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2 1/2 Stars

At first glance Creature seems like any other R-rated monster flick. The difference comes about 40 minutes in when the film begins to twist and change into a strange kick-butt take names later, extremely messed up sexual interplay and monster movie. Creature might be the year’s smartest horror film. Unfortunately there’s nothing scary about it, and the R-rating is more for sexuality than gore. With that in mind the movie strives for something different than your average horror film, a story. It’s easy to see why The Bubble Factory thought it had something here.

The beginning is a little confusing with the lack of dialogue and who was who’s sibling talk, but it’s all important in the end and had I known this wouldn’t be your average monster slasher movie I would have paid a little more attention. There’s even some stuff to look back on and realize what was going on after some reveals later in the movie. Ultimately Creature falls prey to the same problems that plagued The Green Lantern, long and soft setups with distant and weak payoffs. The film tries to trick the viewer into thinking they are seeing a standard college-age kids go off into the swamp camping and exploring only to meet their untimely deaths at the hands of some terrifying monster flick. This takes up about 40 minutes of the movie (with no deaths and no monster, most horror fans may get bored!) and by that time we are settled into this “fact”, but then the story begins to take a few turns. Being that the majority of the setups for these turns take place at the beginning of the film, the changes feel almost as if they come out of left field. Honestly Creature suffers from the exact opposite problems that 2006′s Hatchet had, it has too much story and not enough fun gore. Of course both come up empty in the suspense department (well except one moment in Creature thanks to Sid Haig’s performance). It’s almost as if you can’t believe the movie is taking a different road. I can’t go into any other details as it would ruin the twists, which would make any viewing of the film almost a complete waste.
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