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Creature from the Black Lagoon

Creature from the Black Lagoon

List Price: $24.98
Your Price: $8.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: great fun even without 3-D
Review: This is a fun movie: a cool monster, obnoxious music, hammy acting...what is not to like? The only thing better is seeing it in its original dual projector polarized 3-D version with clear gray glasses. It has been revived in a much less effective "downconverted" red and blue anaglyph 3-D version quite often and in fact, a lot of people mistakenly think the film was originally exhibited that way. WRONG! A really bad red and blue 3-D tape was released in 1980 from MCA but this flat tape is the best we have for now...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: When Will 3D Films Be Released In Their Original Format?
Review: As a black and white 1950s science-fiction thriller, Creature from the Black Lagoon is an atmospheric little horror flick guaranteed to sate the appetites of those who love the genre. But seeing the film on video and seeing it on the big screen in its original 3D are two entirely different things. I had the opportunity to see the film in its original format some twenty years ago at a film festival-- and yes, every one complained about the silly glasses-- but the element of 3D transforms the film into a surprisingly effective thriller with elegantly sinister cinematography, adding an entirely new (and considerably unnerving) element to the famed underwater scenes. Buy the video if you like, it's a fun little film. But don't miss it in its original 3D format if you ever have the chance to see it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Awesome Classic sc-fi
Review: The previous critic can barely write a complete sentence. As far as classic B&W horror films go, this is right up there with Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolfman! Beautiful underwater footage and creepy jungle surroundings make this a very intriguing film. I remember when I was a kid I thought that Richard Denning's character was the villain. He kept telling everybody they should get the heck out of there and not be so ignorant of what was going on. Now that I watch it as an adult I realize he was the only smart and practical character- so he gets killed in the end. Go figure! Really a neat story and setting. I love it!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: CLASSIC CINEMA!
Review: This is a classic of the monster genre. The last of the official Univeral monsters. The costume effects are one of the best, the acting is sincere, and the music is absolutley horrendous. Truly stataling and beautiful amazonian shots and exellent under water photoagraphy.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Classic Sci-Fi video minus color, blood & guts
Review: This is a classic Sci-Fi that keeps your interest to the end. It takes eerie music and your imagination and has you wonder what is coming next. Although it fails in comparison to todays Sci-Fi movies, with their color and blood and guts, it still remains a classic of bygone days that keeps you in suspense. The ending may even make you feel sorry for the monser.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Creature kept afloat by sound premise
Review: The Creature from the Black Lagoon is your basic Saturday morning cartoon stuff, but it is slickly produced to make it one of the prototypes for 1950's monster movies. A biological expedition heads to the nearly forgotten backwaters of the Amazon in search of a mythical half-man, half-lizard creature. The underwater photography in this movie is stunningly lucid (and plays better in black and white than some of the color underwater stuff shot today). Julie Adams's swimming is equally lucid and graceful. Rico Brown (a professional swimmer himself) plays The Creature and is mezmorizing in his underwater fight scenes. Aside from the Adams & Brown synchronized swimming, the other actors leave much to be desired. But the premise and the emphasis on storytelling (not unrelenting violence) is sound enough to keep Creature afloat.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: ok
Review: not that good of a show but good for some well done part on the movi

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Should have included a Field Seqential 3-D version!
Review: Not that many people are aware of the Field Sequential 3-D.
This is a 3-D TV system that uses special shutter glasses that can be purchased here through Amazon in a set that includes 3 DVD's using this process. This system Is the only way to view a 3-D film effectively on TV to date. The result is about 90% close to the effect you will see in a theatre showing.. like IMAX and Disney and Universal.
These glasses are made of sturdy plastic and clear not these cardboard red and blue pieces of garbage, so you can view the film without constricted to seeing red and blue colors and with this system you will see more actual 3-D depth with the films true colors.. It's really amazing!
For some add reason the big studios haven't adapted to include a separate version of a 3-D title in this great format.
Films like:
"House of Wax","Kiss Me Kate","Friday the 13th Part 3", "Robot Monster, "Cat Woman on the Moon", "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "Jaws 3" are all now in 2-D DVD, but were originally shown in 3-D and could have been included using the Field Seqential 3-D system on the same disc with the 2-D version.
In Japan in the late 80's there were a few 3-D titles released using Field Sequential and can be found on e-bay converted to DVD and VHS.
Why aren't the studios producing these now!
I boycott any film DVD release that was originally intended to be seen in 3-D that's only presented in a 2-D version or anaglyph (Red and Blue Glasses).

Since this is out of print maybe we can hope that Universal will wake up and produce a new version containing Field Seqential 3-D!
The studios should really be awaken to this great 3-D system.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The Start of the Rubber Suites
Review: First of all, what a DVD! This has five star extras all the way from cast and crew living the early days to film historians talking about it. `The Creature from the Black Lagoon' was also the first film to use underwater motion picture photography. Diver's oxygen tanks are called by their old original name - The Aqua Lung... not to say that the underwater sequences are badly made or have low production values, quite the opposite, it was this film that Speilberg ripped off for the opening sequence of Jaws... just watch the underwater images of the chick swimming in the lagoon.

The monster, a sort of evolutionary mutation, a fish-man, is as classic as Dracula, Wolfman, Frankenstein, The Mummy, although he is the weakest of the lot, he is actually the best MONSTER. The creature like Dracula has love for women, but is somewhat evil by choice and the creature is not, unlike Wolfman the creature does not change, unlike Frankenstein's monster the creature is natural and not man made, unlike The Mummy he is not the result of magic, just naturally an evolutionary problem because the creature steals your wife when she goes bathing. The creature kills people by either drowning them or crushing their heads in his webbed hands... however surprisingly, there is very little in terms of violence, more suggestive, and is family viewing, no problem.

Cinema circuit 1950s, 60s television children grew up with it, we saw the monster in the 80s movie `The Monster Squad' and then went digging around to find the original. Can the man in the rubber suite still work? Yeah, even beats some animatronics and CGI that we see today. Just check out the size of the suite underwater... not bad considering nobody died making it... or at least that is what we are told anyway. The Creature is simply compelled by sex to do what it does. So was King Kong!

The characters are all functional from the geeky sidekicks, the scientists and boyfriend diver action men, to the stunning heroine in the bikini (the juxtaposition of a woman in water swimming with the creature looks wonderful), the Freudian psychology of the 50s scholar, Beauty and the Beast themes, sexual repression and pent up frustrations on board a boat near the Black Lagoon make this movie anything but slow.

Anyhow this DVD package is truly awesome in every sense of the word. If you have anything for classic monsters in the movies then get this DVD. The extras are sublime.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Classic 50's horror
Review: Monday, January 24, 2005 / 5 of 5 / Classic 50's horror.
One of the seminal horror classics out of the fifties, the Creature still impresses. The underwater photography is murkily beautiful, and the shots of the creature mirroring the female scientist/swimmer underwater as she swam tap into deep fears the way Jaws did, something just below the surface. Scientists travel up the Amazon to a `black lagoon' in an effort to find more to the mystery of a fossilized webbed and clawed hand recently excavated. What they didn't figure on was a relative of the owner of that hand still traipsing around. The blaring score that accompanies the creatures appearances is sufficient warning, but he manages to surprise and kill the majority of the party while carting off the beauty. A lot of fun, recommended.


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