Eighth Annual FMS Scarelicious October Movie Series: #3 Creature from the Black Lagoon

I was too lazy to open up my computer to pull up Netflix (and we still haven't cut the cord on cable) so I thought I'd check out what free, on-demand horror movies were on offer.  I found a classic: 1954's Creature from the Black Lagoon.  An archaeologist in South America finds a webbed and clawed paw petrified in a river bank which is enough incentive to get a scientific expedition together to go up the Amazon.  A group of about eight, including white scientists and doctors, one woman, the ship's captain and some monster fodder, head upriver until the stream is too narrow to pass.  In their explorations, they manage to provoke the Creature - who had been living a peaceful existence in its lagoon until then.  The Creature picks them off one by one and carries off the lovely woman scientist until the remaining men rescue her, kill the poor Creature and head back downriver to civilization.  It's the classic King Kong scenario in which the humans are the true monsters.

This is a beautifully-shot, black and white B-movie.  At 87 minutes, it's still a little tedious: hang out on the boat; someone gets picked off by the monster; hang out on the boat; someone gets picked off by the monster; hang out on the boat; someone gets picked off by the monster.  But the underwater scenes are truly gorgeous, especially when the Creature is swimming around underneath the unsuspecting woman.  There is at least one jump scare that startled me and it's pretty well acted, all things considered.  The rubber suit of the monster, while obviously being a rubber suit, still manages to be at least a little convincing.  The whole movie is put together to elicit sympathy for the Creature who was just living its life before these dang people came and ruined everything.