Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the great movies in the Universal Monsters pantheon, introducing the human/amphibian missing link known as the Gill-Man into the pop culture zeitgeist for the next 70 years. Director Jack Arnold, perhaps the best sci-fi filmmaker of the 1950s, creates a palpable atmosphere of menace as his boatload of scientists venture down the forbidding length of the Amazon River, the monster — obsessed with a woman (Julie Adams) in the boat — stalking them even as they hunt for him.
On the other hand, the hurriedly produced 1955 sequel, Revenge of the Creature, is basically a knockoff of the original (with a different cast). And while the creature himself and the underwater photography are as compelling as before, there’s an air of