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Sadly Over-hyped

Fresh and Exciting

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Within moments I was struck with how terrible the movie looked. With a monster that looks like it was made by the Blue Peter cast, random colour filters that looked appalling and a score that made me turn the volume down it was so bad.Telling the story of a psychic, his subject and a mysterious creature (The very same one used in multiple movies to save money)When you can't take the antagonist seriously and find yourself squinting to work out whats going on you have to question what the creators were playing at.Sure it's not the worst of its ilk, but this is one of those that is so bad.....it's bad and doesn't even have that goofy charm to elevate it above embarassment.The Good: The monster is unintentional comedyThe Bad:Light filters are bafflingly badMonster is laughableMusic cuts through you like a knifeThings I Learnt From This Movie:Science is jazzBatman is a traditional party song

Although the writing credits are totally dissimilar, this movie is an unashamed re-make of The Sea Creature (1956). Although the names of all the characters have been changed, they – as well as the plot and most of the dialogue – are identical. But what is not identical are the fine performances in the original movie. Les Tremayne makes a game stab at the role of the hypnotist but comes nowhere near the power and panache of the Chester Morris portrayal. The rest of the cast – with but one exception – come nowhere near matching the original players. The one exception is Pat Delany. She is not only the equal of Marla English in looks, but is actually superior in acting ability. However, so far as the screenplay is concerned, all that Tony Huston (posing as Enrique Touceda) has done is to change the effectiveness of the original climax and to add a couple of rock numbers for Scotty McKay. As for the "creature" herself, she is largely and laughably inept, both in make-up and acting ability. Also of little appeal is Larry Buchanan's wearisomely, TV oriented direction with its plethora of isolated and arbitrarily inserted close-ups. Admittedly, a few of the scenes (e.g. the teaser Prologue) are inventively handled. Some of the photography is also imaginative (e.g. the silhouette of the black-caped, top-hated hypnotist on the cliff top). Production values are also not too bad, considering the film was obviously produced on a very, very tight budget.

More Larry Buchanan fever dream stuff, this time concerning a stage psychic, his beautiful assistant and a series of motiveless murders committed by a man in a rubber monster suit who, in the end, turns out to be some sort of manifestation of the beautiful assistant's inner bestial nature - I think. Anyway the monster just vanishes when she is shot dead so I guess that is what we are supposed to think. But after 80 minutes contending with dialogue like this it's a bit difficult to think anything:Capt. Dell: "Lieutenant Blake..."Lt. Blake: "Yes?"Capt. Dell: "Lieutenant, I'd like to point something out to you. Now - I saw those bodies and whoever mutilated them has a very special problem."Lt. Blake: "Yes, I realise that; tell me something new, captain."Capt. Dell: "I am a psychologist."Lt. Blake: "Well, as a psychologist what is your opinion of this 'doctor' Basso and his monster theory?"Lt. Capt. Dell: "That anything is possible? As a scientist I keep an open mind."Blake: "Yes Captain, anything is possible... "I've worked out the Larry Buchanan shooting technique. (If I work this up, I could end up with a Dogma 95-like manifesto for crappy movie makers the world over):* Shoot it once, without sound and loop in the dialogue in the 'studio' afterwards. Shooting without sound is cheap. If the actor fluffs his line - so what? As long as everyone else keeps going, whole scenes can be covered in two or three takes. One wide shot and then a close-up of the more reliable actor in the scene - and "Thank you! on to the next set-up, guys! Come on, let's pick up the pace here - we've only got four days to shoot this turkey!".* Don't record any Wild Track or Atmos - techy terms for ambient room tone - ie the sound that a room makes when there's nobody making any noise in it. I know that sounds a bit Zen but different kinds of silence are very useful in the editing process. But you don't need it. Not if the whole sound track will be laid down by actors standing around a microphone and library music will be played under every scene. Spot sound effects will be needed from time to time but there's no need to try and match the acoustic of your sound effect to the supposed acoustic of the location. In Creature of Destruction seventeen people applauding on a beach sounds exactly the same as a hundred people applauding in a busy night club.* Fade out or cross-fade at the end of every scene - with all the money you saved not doing synch sound you've got a few dollars in the budget for opticals. (Always a good general rule of thumb in film editing: Not sure how to get out of a scene? Fade to black.)* Don't squander a penny more than you have to on hiring anything for longer than you have to - I did spend a chunk of this movie wondering why the lead sometimes wore an Air Force uniform, and sometimes didn't, until I realised he only wore it indoors. By the time they got round to shooting all the outdoor, daytime, stuff it had been sent back to the hire company.* Another good no-budget trick of the day was to get some poor wannabe pop singer and his band to contribute one of his 'swinging numbers' and fill the screen with gyrating tits and hips for five minutes as middle-aged teenagers Watusi their way to utter obscurity...Creature of Destruction is available to download free from Archive.org

Considering that this film was made by Larry Buchanan, you can't help but assume it will be a horrible film. After all, Buchanan made a ton of low-budget AND terrible films in his illustrious career. For most, this might be a bad thing, but fans of bad films (like myself) actually seek out his films because they are usually laughably bad.At first, I was concerned however, as the film didn't seem all that bad. Sure, the monster was recycled from several previous cheesy films, but the plot involving the evil hypnotist seemed interesting. However, considering that the film never really connected this mind control with the appearance of the murderous creature, the film sure was confusing...and dopey.Les Tremayne plays the hypnotist/mentalist and he actually seemed like a pretty good actor--but he was unfortunately stuck in a bad film. He had an assistant--a pretty lady who was under his total power. She would travel back in town a describe previous lives she'd lived to amazed audiences of rubes. Later, a doubtful psychic investigator (an air force captain whose hair was too long to be a real military man) tries to break Tremayne's hold on the lady. At the same time, there are a series of silly murders on the nearby beach--though as I said before, there really is no explanation of how the evil Tremayne and the somnabalistic lady are involved.In many ways, the film is like THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH (a truly dreadful film) and the classic silent, THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI. The evil mentalist and his patsy are there--as is the dumb bug-eyed monster (a guy in a diving suit, rubber gloves and a silly mask).What's to like? Well, other than Tremayne and a mildly interesting mentalist concept, nothing. The film is poorly directed and written and just screams "cheese" from start to finish. Only for the lovers of bad cinema.