Movie Review: Creature (1985)

Movie Review: Creature (1985) directed by William Malone

In the not too distant future, a spaceship named Shenandoah is sent by the multinational corporation NTI to Titan, a moon of Saturn, to lay claim to some alien artifacts found there. There’s some trepidation by the crew, since the last expedition has no known survivors, and the last sign of them was one crashing their ship into a space station.

Commanding the follow-up expedition is corporate suit David Perkins (Lyman Ward). He’s brought along his own security guard, the taciturn Melanie Bryce (Diane Salinger). The rest of the crew is pilot Mike Davison (Stan Ivar), the sensitive Susan Delambre (Marie Laurin), her lover Jon Fennel (Robert Jaffe), biophysicist Dr. Wendy H. Oliver (Annette McCarthy) who is the team medic, and engineer Beth Sladen (Wendy Schaal). Approaching Titan, they spot a ship from rival corporation Richter Dynamics. It’s a fair distance from the site of the discovery, so Perkins orders a more direct landing at the correct coordinates.

This is a mistake, as the surface is unstable there, and the Shenandoah is badly damaged when the landing site collapses. There’s little choice but to seek help from the Richter party. But when the crew reaches the Richter ship, they find only corpses, and something that seemingly kills Susan before they can get away.

Back at their own ship, the NTI crew meets Hans Rudy Hofner (Klaus Kinski), the last survivor (so he claims) of the Richter expedition. He’s eccentric and his ramblings about a creature that killed his crew are hard to take seriously. But there is definitely something out there, and it’s not done killing!

This sci fi/horror flick is a pretty direct descendant of Alien, and some of the same special effect crew would go on to work on Aliens after this movie wrapped. The main differentiator is that this alien monster has the ability to puppet its human prey by inserting control organisms into their brains, eventually replacing the brain altogether. This allows it to lure the survivors into danger.

The special effects are decent for the budget; lots of use of darkness and mist effects to obscure the sets. (And cobwebs in space!)

The acting is so-so but Kinski is mostly fun as Hans, who seems turned on by the fact that Bryce isn’t into him and could kick his ass if she wanted to.

Unfortunately, my Echo Bridge copy was a poor quality pan and scan transfer.

Eighties oddity: There’s still a “West Germany” in the future. (Also, Bryce’s personal hair and makeup style look very “eighties butch.” She miight be a lesbian?)

Content note: Violence and gore, mutilated corpses. Female nudity under frankly ludicrous circumstances.

Enough different from Alien to be its own thing, but not good enough to escape the similarities.