Creature (1985 film)

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This entry is for the 1985 theatrical film. For the film that was aired as Creature on SciFi UK, see Alien Lockdown
Creature
Creatureposter.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byWilliam Malone
Screenplay byWilliam Malone
Alan Reed
Produced byWilliam G. Dunn
StarringStan Ivar
Wendy Schaal
Lyman Ward
Robert Jaffe
Diane Salinger
Annette McCarthy
Klaus Kinski
CinematographyHarry Mathias
Edited byBette Jane Cohen
Music byThomas Chase
Steve Rucker
Distributed byTrans World Entertainment
Release date
  • March 1985 (1985-03) (Brussels International Festival
    of Fantasy Films)
  • May 8, 1985 (1985-05-08) (United States)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Creature (also known as The Titan Find and Titan Find) is a cult 1985 American science fiction horror film directed by William Malone, starring Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Annette McCarthy, Robert Jaffe, and Diane Salinger. It features early special effects work by Robert and Dennis Skotak, who had designed the special effects for Aliens.[1]

Plot[]

In the film's prologue, two geological researchers for the American multinational corporation NTI encounter an ancient alien laboratory on Titan, the largest moon of Saturn. In the lab is an egg-like container which is keeping an alien creature alive. The creature emerges and kills the researchers. Two months later, the geologists' spaceship crashes into the space station Concorde in orbit around Earth's Moon, its pilot having died in his seat.

NTI dispatches a new ship, the Shenandoah, to Titan. Its crew, consisting of Captain Mike Davison (Stan Ivar), Susan Delambre (Marie Laurin), Jon Fennel (Robert Jaffe), Dr. Wendy H. Oliver (Annette McCarthy), David Perkins (Lyman Ward) and Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal), is accompanied by the taciturn security officer Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger). While in orbit, the crew locate a signal coming from the moon—the distress call of a ship from the rival West German multinational Richter Dynamics. Their own landing turns disastrous when the ground collapses beneath their landing site, dropping the ship into a cavern and wrecking it. When radio communication fails, a search party is sent out to contact the Germans.

In the West German ship, they find one of the containers from the prologue breached, as well as the dead bodies of the crew. The creature appears and kills Delambre when she lags behind the escaping group. Fennel enters a state of shock at the sight and Bryce sedates him. When they return to their own ship, the Americans find that one of the West Germans, Hans Rudy Hofner (Klaus Kinski), has snuck aboard. He tells them how his crew was slain by the creature, which was buried with other organisms as part of a galactic menagerie. He proposes returning to his ship to get explosives, but the crew are unwilling to risk it.

It becomes apparent that the creature's undead victims are controlled by the creature through parasites. Unsupervised in the medbay, Fennel sees the undead Delambre through a porthole and follows her outside. She strips naked, and he stands transfixed while she removes his helmet. He asphyxiates, and then she attaches an alien parasite to his head. Now under alien control, Fennel sends a transmission to his crewmates, inviting them over to the German ship. Hofner and Bryce are sent to get some air tanks for the Shenandoah and stand guard over it, while the rest of the crew go over to the Richter ship.

Hofner and Bryce stop over at the menagerie on their way, and are attacked by Delambre, who has had a parasite attached earlier. The rest of the crew go over to the Richter ship, and find Fennel with a bandage on his head to conceal his parasite. Davison insists that medical officer Oliver examine his head, so Fennel has her accompany him to the engineering quarters to feed her to the creature. Davison and Perkins notice Fennel doesn't sweat and go check on them. They are too late to rescue Oliver, who is decapitated by the creature, but Perkins blows up Fennel's head with his pistol.

Soon afterwards, Sladen runs into an infected Hofner. She escapes the ship, and in her haste, only puts on her helmet after exiting. Perkins spots her outside and opens the airlock. Now unconscious, Sladen is carried in by Hofner to lure the others. They fight, and Davison manages to defeat Hofner by ripping off his parasite. The three survivors formulate a plan to electrocute the creature with the ship's fusion modules, which can only be accessed by going through the engineering quarters.

Alarms suddenly sound as a creature makes its way through the ship, committing sabotage. Sladen and Davison go through engineering to construct an electrocution trap, while Perkins goes to the computer room to monitor the creature. Sladen finishes rigging the trap just in time for the creature's arrival, and they apparently electrocute it to death. However, when Davison leaves, it captures Sladen.

Davison and Perkins follow her screaming and find her locked inside engineering. Studying the ship's blueprints, they find another entrance to engineering and sends Perkins to lure away the creature while Davison retrieves Sladen. On the way, Perkins locates one of the bombs Hofner had mentioned, just before the creature jumps him. Dying, Perkins manages to attach the bomb to the creature and set off the countdown so Davison can jettison it through the airlock.

It climbs back aboard, however, so Davison tackles it, throwing himself out the airlock in the process. When the bomb fails to explode, Bryce appears and shoots it, which sets it off and kills the creature. She recovers Davison and reunites with Sladen, who dresses Davison's wounds. Finally, the trio leaves Titan aboard the West German ship.

Cast[]

Reception[]

Neil Gaiman reviewed Titan Find for Imagine magazine, and stated that "an Alien rip-off, in which brain-sucking monsters severely menace astronauts on Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Lots of bone-crunching, oozings, and going into dark cabins on one's own."[2]

At the 12th Saturn Awards, held in 1985, Creature was nominated for Best Horror Film and Best Special Effects by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films, but lost both to Gremlins.[3]

VHS and DVD releases[]

Sometime after the film's release, the film fell into the public domain[citation needed] and received numerous VHS and DVD releases. In 2007, Creature was shown on the horror hosted television series Cinema Insomnia.[4] Apprehensive Films later released the Cinema Insomnia version on DVD.[5]

In March 2013, director Malone independently re-released Creature on DVD under its initial title of Titan Find, fully uncut and in widescreen for the first time.[6]

See also[]

References[]

  1. ^ Creature at IMDb.
  2. ^ Gaiman, Neil (July 1985). "Fantasy Media". Imagine (review). TSR Hobbies (UK), Ltd. (28): 54.
  3. ^ 12th Saturn Awards at IMDb.
  4. ^ "Cinema Insomnia". Cinema Insomnia. Archived from the original on March 28, 2010. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
  5. ^ "Creature DVD". Apprehensive Films. Archived from the original on September 8, 2010. Retrieved July 20, 2010.
  6. ^ Dread Central

External links[]

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