Format: DVD from Cortland Public Library on The New Portable.
There’s plenty of old-school horror in the original Universal monsters, but not a great deal that’s genuinely scary. What’s interesting is just how many of the monsters are, once you dig past the horror trappings, really tragic. The Gill Man, better known as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, is one such tragic monster. While much of his tragedy is the story, perhaps the bigger tragedy is that he never got a really good sequel. Revenge of the Creature is about as good as we’re going to get for him, the poor fishy bastard.
So what’s wrong with the sequel? Well, for starters, it stars John Agar, the square-jawed, mostly talentless version of an A-list actor in B-list movies. A lot of Agar films, including this one, wound up on Mystery Science Theater 3000. I have, in fact, seen the MST3K version of this film so many times that I remember particular quips from it. Still, it’s only fair to give this its honest due for this website.
