Watch Night Creature For Free

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Donald Pleasence plays a big-game hunter who strands himself on his private Thai island with a leopard that once almost killed him during hunting.Unfortunately his family including two adult daughters visits him so the situation becomes more complicated."Night Creature" directed by Lee Madden is a mediocre animal attack flick with low body count and the lack of tension.There are few effective horror bits for example the scene in which the cat attacks and kills one of the daughters,but not much happens during 80% of the movie.Still if you are animal attack movies collector you can give "Night Creature" a look.5 tropical rainfalls out of 10.

Check that lame-o-meter. Donald Pleasence is Axel MacGregor, a world renowned writer, test pilot, big game hunter and writer. MacGregor has a lop-sided sense of machismo and his ego has been threatened by a black leopard who attacked him on safari. He has the animal captured alive with the intent to let the beast loose on his private Southeast-Asian island paradise in order to track it down and claim superiority with a high powered rifle. Meanwhile his daughter and granddaughter make an unannounced visit. MacGregor will have more than enough to deal with...right down to his last bullet. The supporting cast includes: Nancy Kwan, Lesly Fine, Ross Hagen and Jennifer Rhodes.

Perhaps I should explain that I am one of those people who are willing to sit through the most egregious crap, just to be able to hear Nancy Kwan's charming Hong Kong accent and see her fabulous zygomatic bones. But even for me, 1978's "Night Creature" was tough to get through. In this one, Nancy and a few others pick the wrong time to pop in on her dad, big-game hunter Donald Pleasence, at his private Thai island in the River Kwai. Donald has just released a preternaturally cunning and spitefully ferocious black leopard to hunt and engage in a battle of wits; a creature that wastes little time going after Nancy's half sister... Anyway, this movie is basically junk. Ineptly lensed and directed, with a weak story and little in the way of suspense, it surely doesn't offer much to the casual viewer. And the DVD in question here doesn't help. The picture is fuzzy and scuzzy, revealing a crummy and scummy 16mm print source, and the sound quality is very poor. Still, somehow, a viewing of "Night Creature" does have its compensations. Pleasence's acting is fun to watch, ranging as it does from hypermaniacal to catatonic. The film is atmospheric in parts, the Thai scenery looks nice, and Nancy Kwan looks even nicer. She is 39 in this film--18 years past her yummy Suzie Wong debut--and still looks very beautiful. Heck, she's still a looker TODAY, at 68! But even those zygomatic bones aren't enough to redeem "Night Creature." This is surely a film for Nancy Kwan completists only. Like me

The recent DVD release of this is pretty murky and mediocre at best, but the film is worth a look, especially for animal attack movie fans.The opening scene is pretty laugh inducing with its POV cat footage, and most shots of the impressive title beast are used at least twice but the film does build some momentum. Ross Hagen, the producer and actor is pretty hard to take in his perky mugging fun lovin' tour guide character but once he gets scared by the cat things improve.The direction is a big pain in the ass, lots of freeze frames and slow motion--the slow motion is actually effective once you get used to it but the stills and the voice over, especially right at the start have to be put up with rather than learned to liked.The island setting with its ruined temple and rain is impressive as is the cat action stalking around the ruins or into the house. Good kitty. Cat training and wrangling gets top marks. There is a prolonged kill scene at night which is pretty intense, despite the hard to see DVD quality of it. This kill motivates Pleasance to do maybe his best crying freak-out in a long career. It belongs on any Pleasance fan's greatest hits tape! This is also one of the few in his fistful of film credits where he is the major character in the film rather than just showing up a couple of times quickly as happened more in the back half of his career--aside from the Halloween movies. He totally unglues in this great scene, it is shocking actually the way it should be, this breakdown scene. From that moment on the film is much better and gains momentum steadily until the ending.Has to be said that more people should have died for this to be more drama and less melodrama, but the central theme for the Pleasance character does work itself out and his interaction with the other characters is interesting. That can't be said for the interaction of those supporting characters on their own.Probably unlikely a better DVD will come along anytime soon, and too bad the film didn't have a better director, but again the cat is impressive and if you can put up with serious problems in the first 30 minutes it's worth the ride.