Creature From the Black Lagoon (1954)

Most people seem to accept that Creature From the Black Lagoon is part of the classic Universal Monsters line-up, sitting alongside Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy on home video covers, in theme park attractions, and on twelve-packs of soda and bags of potato chips—but in terms of context and content, it is at a removed from the films of the thirties and forties. Those films carried a certain Victorian literary flair (even when they ostensibly took place in “modern” times), set in a Gothic version of Europe (and maybe some other places) frozen in time, full of old foreboding castles and supernatural curses; the 1950s, often favoured science-based horror, and not the theatrical mad science of Frankenstein or The Invisible Man, but the kind that discovered and unleashed the atomic bomb, or that probed deeper into the prehistoric past or into outer space, and finding signs of man’s ultimate insignificance. In that sense, Black Lagoon is closer in spirit to its contemporaries, the less-commented-upon run of Sci-Fi monster movies put out by Universal that spanned everything from It Came From Outer Space and This Island Earth to Tarantula and even something like The Monolith Monsters. These films were about contemporary scientific thought—or, as close as movies like these actually get to it—and grapple with the idea that the more we learn about our universe, the more strange and terrifying it becomes, which is something a bit different from the otherworldly horrors of older stories.

But Black Lagoon still feels like a bridge between the “classic” monsters, which were gaining a new following thanks to television re-airings, and the new breed of mutants and space aliens haunting horror films—while the style of fifties-style monsters and the “classics” differed, that’s not to say that they were completely incompatible. This movies demonstrates that there are, in fact, many places where the two eras both diverge and meet: while steeped in the modern conventions and trends of the day, it maintains a good deal of the spirit of its predecessors, especially in characterizing its lead monster as an individual, tragic figure as well as a terrifying force. There is indeed a reason why this Creature gets to be part of the gang.

Day the World Ended (1955)

We’re now in the merry Cormonth of Cormay, which is my extremely tortured way of saying that the rest of the month will be devoted to films by B-Movie King Roger Corman, who has directed 55 movies and produced hundreds more over a seven decade career (and while many of them are actually in the public domain, you can find the best quality versions on Shout Factory’s streaming site.) Corman is famous for many things, especially during the fifties and sixties: his economical (some might say tightfisted) budgets, speedy filmmaking, and an eye for talent that has given early breaks to some of the biggest names in Hollywood. Day the World Ended (which was apparently also the day proper grammar ended) is the first Sci-Fi/monster movie Corman directed solo, made in ten days (a record that he will quickly beat, as we will see), and embodies many of the common elements of Corman’s directorial efforts from this period, being efficient (with a small cast of actors and a limited number of locations), having a goofy-looking monster made (and played) by monster suit pioneer Paul Blaisdell, and being surprisingly effective for what it is.