Peter Benchley's Creature

Really good movie, scary, the characters really are good together.

Awesome highly recommend it

Everything about this two-parter movie was awesome. By far my fav shark movie because of the quality to detail on the monster and an actually good storyline. I can't say how many times I've seen it already, but I'll be sure to keep watching it with my friends who haven't seen it!

A lot of Benclye's stories involve some sort of sea creature. Sharks, squids and now this hybrid man-shark critter. The novel was somewhat different from the film but was enjoyable anyway. Craig T. Nelson is good ((I've enjoyed him since "Flesh Gordon" where he was the voice of the end monster). And the creature makeup and effects weren't too bad either. A decent popcorn movie.

Good movie that's been hard to find.

Movie as I remember it; still entertaining.

I like this movie, the scenery was beautiful and I Love movies that take place with the ocean. Long long movie but entertaining to watch/ I didnt find anything cheesy about how it was done and the creature was realistic looking. I enjoyed watching this several times and would recommend it. Good actors as well.

When I was much younger, around twelve years ago now, I caught parts of this movie on TV watched on a really hot summer evening alone in my parent’s room. From that day to now I had a hard time remembering the name of the film, and “man-shark” surprisingly yielded few helpful results. When I finally stumbled upon this again, I bought the DVD and loaded it up.It’s amazing what I did and didn’t remember from this movie, especially given that I feel I watched less of it than I actually did. With ten years of hindsight between then and now, how does the film hold up?Surprisingly really well. It looks really good, for starters. Thomas Burstyn was the cinematographer, an old pro who gives the film a very tropical feel. He really uses the blues and oranges well in every scene. The island looks great, every shot just oozes summer and ocean. It’s a movie that makes you want to vacation there.Stuart Gillard directed this, another sure hand who has been around the block when it comes to directing for TV. His direction is competent, but nothing to write home about.I’m not really sure what people are expecting with this, and I’ve seen a lot of people really dragging this through the mud for what I think are unfair reasons. First, the effects are great, especially when you consider the production budget this had and the time it was made. I actually really appreciate how much they try to have a practical monster effect throughout the movie.The performances are also stellar across the board. Yeah, ok, some of the locals aren’t exactly going for Academy Awards here, but the main cast are all pros doing the work. Craig T. Nelson is one of the only actors capable of pulling off this dialogue and making it sound halfway believable. Kim Cattrall is also doing her thing well, she has just the right amount of knowing irony without exposing the whole operation. There’s a scene she has just looking over photographs and it’s as compelling to me as anytime the goofy man-shark attacks.Giancarlo Esposito is delightfully hammy as Werewolf, and he’s such a good actor he manages to bring a level of tragedy to his character that otherwise would’ve been hokey. Blu Mankuma is here as well, as a police chief, and he’s one of those actors man, he is so sincere in how he plays the circumstances that he’s really entertaining.Of all people, Cress Williams really stole the show as Tall Man. He just has this really likable energy and he looks like a star. The best performances in this movie are from the actors who really take themselves and the movie seriously.It isn’t perfect, don’t get me wrong. There’s this odd motif where the frame rate decreases whenever the shark is near and it looks really lame every time. The other major problem, and I do mean MAJOR problem, is that this film is too effing long. The DVD I have splits it into two parts and THANK GOD because if I had to watch all three hours of this in one sitting I’d scream. The second episode is also way worse than the first. Like it’s a lot worse put together and paced out, it just never seems to end.I’m also the type of person who usually likes the slow build to a crazy climax, and the first half of this series gives it to me better than the second half. Once the military come in and it gets more action heavy I kind of lose my interest. Put it this way, in another Benchley adaptation: Jaws, I prefer the hour spent on the island talking about the shark to the hour spent on the boat hunting the shark.Also, it should be considered that I am a lot more forgiving of a TV movie than I am a large budgeted film or prestige series. I grew up watching stuff like “Dino Shark” and “Mega Snake” and took them 100% seriously.Overall, I wanted a movie to make me feel like it was summertime and this delivered. I probably won’t watch this again for a long time, but I’m glad I saw it again if for nothing more than the nostalgia it gave me.