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Peter Benchley's Creature
Olive Films // Unrated // May 19, 2015
List Price: $29.95 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Miniseries:
Peter Benchley's novels are no strangers to alterations while getting them on-screen. After all, many of the things people love about Steven Speilberg's Jaws -- the camaraderie of the Orca's crew and the circumstances of who lives and dies -- vary drastically from those in the novel, making the film an arguably superior take on the material as a result. Creature, a three-hour production broken into two parts for broadcast television, offers another tweaked adaptation of Benchley's writing: a take on the author's novel "White Shark", veering away from standard oceanographic fear and into the water with a genetically-altered war machine terrorizing an island community. Expectations were kept in check for this creature-feature from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 and Riverworld director Stuart Gillard, naturally but that lenience doesn't extend to its overlong and tepid suspense, carbon-copied from both classic and contemporary genre flicks and padded with uninteresting divergences to fill up its length.
Following a flashback to the '70s -- nope, no harebrained Nazism here -- where a clandestine US Navy project loses control of a biological creation off the coast of the remote Shark's Tooth Island, Creature picks up twenty-plus years later on the boat of shark researcher Dr. Simon Chase (Craig T. Nelson), whose work has taken him to the same tropical waters. In the midst of a visit from his ex-wife Amanda (Kim Cattrall), also an aquatic research scientist, and their teenage son Max (Matthew Carey), strange occurrences start happening off the coast of the island: vicious attacks believed to be the doing of Dr. Chase's great white shark research subject. A little investigation into the matter from Dr. Chase reveals some discrepancies between the attacks and those of a shark, a mystery that gradually comes into focus as he delves into the research that once went on at the island's facility. He's against the clock in trying to figure out the situation before this enigmatic beast does any more harm, pitting him against warped scientific research, military opposition, and skepticism from the island's inhabitants.
Loosely adapted by Farscape and Defiance mastermind Rockne S. O'Bannon, Creature seems designed for its pair of hour-and-a-half portions to mimic different cinematic objectives, with the first half unashamedly embracing the same kind of setting and mystery building from Jaws ... as well as the shock-value science of Jurassic Park. In a way, it's almost surprising that Colm Feore's bigwig military character didn't yell out "Shoot her! SHOOT HER!" amid shrieking and monster-corralling in the miniseries' opening flashback. After jumping from the '70s to the modern era, the story essentially transforms the remote island into a more exotic analog of Amity, hitting eerily similar story beats -- scapegoat sharks, bullheaded authority figures, false assurances of safety -- with a voodoo-practicing fishing culture as a backdrop to set it apart. Instead of adding a layer of atmospheric depth to the suspense akin to The Deep, another adaptation of Benchley's work, the island's citizens and traditions amount to little more than a bloated distraction, a means to justify the company of Dr. Chase's capable assistant, "Tall Man" (Cress Williams), and the village kook, "Werewolf" (a frazzled Giancarlo Esposito).
Unlike some of the other characters found in movie adaptations of Peter Benchley's novels, from self-financed scientists to war-veteran shark hunters, Dr. Chase and his family never get any deeper than shallow traits and token performances. Craig T. Nelson basically repurposes Coach Hayden Fox in board shorts as Dr. Chase, while Kim Cattrall embodies how I'd imagine Gracie Law from Big Trouble in Little China acting had she abandoned journalism for oceanography. Not that their credible familiarity's a bad thing, really, especially in this kind of flick. Their characters' mutual profession, divorce, and parental instinct should boost the tension while unearthing the horrors of a research project gone awry; however, a lack of chemistry does the buildup few favors, especially when surrounded by unsurprisingly cliche family and romance drama. This wouldn't matter so much had Creature been more oriented towards its horror aspects, instead of the mysteries of the Navy's project and how they compliment Dr. Chase's worlds-away work. Like this, things drag on and on in this 90-minute setup.
Creature tries to cash in on that vintage monster-movie potential throughout the second half, capitalizing on the modest box-office draw of contemporaries like The Relic and Mimic as the island becomes the hunting ground for an outlandish product of mankind's hubris. Despite Stan Winston's grotesque crossbreed design for the creature and its (literally) evolving capabilities, however, the payoff for enduring director Gillard's escalation turns out to be tame and drawn out to a point of tedium. Lacking either a proper upsurge in fear or, understandably, the R-rated gumption to generate the sort of satisfying momentum needed for the Navy's wayward science project, it results in clumsy, sterile -- and surprisingly unmemorable -- horror filling the dank tunnels of the facility and the island's forests. A brisker ninety-minute jaunt might be found swimming around in this three-hour twist on Peter Benchley's novel, but chopping down the length wouldn't keep its fundamentals from producing a dopey and toothless beast watered down for the small screen.
The Blu-ray:
Peter Benchley's Creature arrives from Olive Films in a standard Blu-ray presentation with highly 'shopped artwork, suggesting a gritty tone that the miniseries doesn't ever really reach. Upon loading the disc, users have the option of selecting either of the 90-minute parts to preserve the original broadcast experience, labeled "Night 1" and "Night 2" on the menu. Fade-to-black transitions for commercial breaks are peppered throughout, and the disc runs credits at the end of both halves. The disc doesn't offer the option of simply playing both parts back-to-back, so you're getting an authentic experience here (sans actual commercials).
Video and Audio:
Wasn't sure what to expect with the transfer Olive Films brought to the surface for this late-'90s creature-feature miniseries, but not something quite as strong as this 1.78:1-framed, 1080p AVC encode that'll assuredly satisfy fans and casual viewers alike. Sure, many scenes that take place at night and in the dark tunnels of the research facility experience oppressive black levels that dominate underlying details, and there are a small handful of instances where aliasing can be spotted against sharp contours. Those are minor stumbling blocks to what Creature showcases in broader light sources and during the daytime, though: immersive depth of field while overlooking the extent of the island atmosphere; striking fine detail in close-ups on faces, clothing, and artifacts underneath an impressive veil of grain; and persistently convincing flesh tones, crisp watery blues, and verdant greens in foliage. Despite the elevated contrast, the grimy details of the creature and the atmospheric lighting pouring in throughout the research facility upon its morbid details (especially sickly-green jars with preserved biology experiments) create an absorbing HD climate. Wish other '90s films received this kind of treatment.
The audio is no slouch either, clocking in with a robust 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track with a well-attuned focus on the music and surrounding atmosphere. There aren't a lot of hard-hitting sonic elements throughout the production -- a few intense splashes here and gunshots there, along with lesss-than-expected growls from the beast -- but the ones that are there display moderate strength and clarity. Much more prominent are subtle effects, like the sloshing of water in the cavernous research facility, the rusty creaking of metal, and the hum of boat motors, all of which deliver fine aural balance and enough awareness of mid-level bass for natural effects. Mostly, the track's impressiveness comes in locking in a consistent atmosphere with the bustle of the island and the eeriness of the research facility, underscored with clear effects traveling to the rear channels and insistent, buoyant scoring that unsubtly adjusts the mood. It's a fine track that sinks its teeth into what the sound design needs.
Special Features:
Nothin', unless you want to count multi-colored menu designs annotating the miniseries' different broadcast nights.
Final Thoughts:
Peter Benchley's Creature attempts to stretch the simplicity of a creature-feature into something twice as long than it needs to be, hoping that its family drama, cultural backdrop, and warped science will sustain enough interest to fill a two-night, three-hour event. Far worse monster movies, both classic and modern, exist out there than Stuart Gillard's adaptation, but that doesn't stop this one from being a watered-down slog that'd like to be both a Spielbergian horror-drama and a schlocky midnight extravaganza. What ends up happening is that the spread-out plot feels more like a delaying action than a sci-fi/suspense backdrop, and the thrills born from it aren't meaty enough to justify those limp batches of borrowed storytelling. Olive Films' Blu-ray does a bang-up job of presenting the '90s miniseries with digital aplomb, though, which will make a Rental a very satisfying experience.
Thomas Spurlin, Staff Reviewer -- DVDTalk Reviews | Personal Blog/Site
Peter Benchley's novels are no strangers to alterations while getting them on-screen. After all, many of the things people love about Steven Speilberg's Jaws -- the camaraderie of the Orca's crew and the circumstances of who lives and dies -- vary drastically from those in the novel, making the film an arguably superior take on the material as a result. Creature, a three-hour production broken into two parts for broadcast television, offers another tweaked adaptation of Benchley's writing: a take on the author's novel "White Shark", veering away from standard oceanographic fear and into the water with a genetically-altered war machine terrorizing an island community. Expectations were kept in check for this creature-feature from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 and Riverworld director Stuart Gillard, naturally but that lenience doesn't extend to its overlong and tepid suspense, carbon-copied from both classic and contemporary genre flicks and padded with uninteresting divergences to fill up its length. Following a flashback to the '70s -- nope, no harebrained Nazism here -- where a clandestine US Navy project loses control of a biological creation off the coast of the remote Shark's Tooth Island, Creature picks up twenty-plus years later on the boat of shark researcher Dr. Simon Chase (Craig T. Nelson), whose work has taken him to the same tropical waters. In the midst of a visit from his ex-wife Amanda (Kim Cattrall), also an aquatic research scientist, and their teenage son Max (Matthew Carey), strange occurrences start happening off the coast of the island: vicious attacks believed to be the doing of Dr. Chase's great white shark research subject. A little investigation into the matter from Dr. Chase reveals some discrepancies between the attacks and those of a shark, a mystery that gradually comes into focus as he delves into the research that once went on at the island's facility. He's against the clock in trying to figure out the situation before this enigmatic beast does any more harm, pitting him against warped scientific research, military opposition, and skepticism from the island's inhabitants.
Loosely adapted by Farscape and Defiance mastermind Rockne S. O'Bannon, Creature seems designed for its pair of hour-and-a-half portions to mimic different cinematic objectives, with the first half unashamedly embracing the same kind of setting and mystery building from Jaws ... as well as the shock-value science of Jurassic Park. In a way, it's almost surprising that Colm Feore's bigwig military character didn't yell out "Shoot her! SHOOT HER!" amid shrieking and monster-corralling in the miniseries' opening flashback. After jumping from the '70s to the modern era, the story essentially transforms the remote island into a more exotic analog of Amity, hitting eerily similar story beats -- scapegoat sharks, bullheaded authority figures, false assurances of safety -- with a voodoo-practicing fishing culture as a backdrop to set it apart. Instead of adding a layer of atmospheric depth to the suspense akin to The Deep, another adaptation of Benchley's work, the island's citizens and traditions amount to little more than a bloated distraction, a means to justify the company of Dr. Chase's capable assistant, "Tall Man" (Cress Williams), and the village kook, "Werewolf" (a frazzled Giancarlo Esposito).
Unlike some of the other characters found in movie adaptations of Peter Benchley's novels, from self-financed scientists to war-veteran shark hunters, Dr. Chase and his family never get any deeper than shallow traits and token performances. Craig T. Nelson basically repurposes Coach Hayden Fox in board shorts as Dr. Chase, while Kim Cattrall embodies how I'd imagine Gracie Law from Big Trouble in Little China acting had she abandoned journalism for oceanography. Not that their credible familiarity's a bad thing, really, especially in this kind of flick. Their characters' mutual profession, divorce, and parental instinct should boost the tension while unearthing the horrors of a research project gone awry; however, a lack of chemistry does the buildup few favors, especially when surrounded by unsurprisingly cliche family and romance drama. This wouldn't matter so much had Creature been more oriented towards its horror aspects, instead of the mysteries of the Navy's project and how they compliment Dr. Chase's worlds-away work. Like this, things drag on and on in this 90-minute setup. Creature tries to cash in on that vintage monster-movie potential throughout the second half, capitalizing on the modest box-office draw of contemporaries like The Relic and Mimic as the island becomes the hunting ground for an outlandish product of mankind's hubris. Despite Stan Winston's grotesque crossbreed design for the creature and its (literally) evolving capabilities, however, the payoff for enduring director Gillard's escalation turns out to be tame and drawn out to a point of tedium. Lacking either a proper upsurge in fear or, understandably, the R-rated gumption to generate the sort of satisfying momentum needed for the Navy's wayward science project, it results in clumsy, sterile -- and surprisingly unmemorable -- horror filling the dank tunnels of the facility and the island's forests. A brisker ninety-minute jaunt might be found swimming around in this three-hour twist on Peter Benchley's novel, but chopping down the length wouldn't keep its fundamentals from producing a dopey and toothless beast watered down for the small screen.
The Blu-ray:
 |  |
Peter Benchley's Creature arrives from Olive Films in a standard Blu-ray presentation with highly 'shopped artwork, suggesting a gritty tone that the miniseries doesn't ever really reach. Upon loading the disc, users have the option of selecting either of the 90-minute parts to preserve the original broadcast experience, labeled "Night 1" and "Night 2" on the menu. Fade-to-black transitions for commercial breaks are peppered throughout, and the disc runs credits at the end of both halves. The disc doesn't offer the option of simply playing both parts back-to-back, so you're getting an authentic experience here (sans actual commercials).
Video and Audio:
Wasn't sure what to expect with the transfer Olive Films brought to the surface for this late-'90s creature-feature miniseries, but not something quite as strong as this 1.78:1-framed, 1080p AVC encode that'll assuredly satisfy fans and casual viewers alike. Sure, many scenes that take place at night and in the dark tunnels of the research facility experience oppressive black levels that dominate underlying details, and there are a small handful of instances where aliasing can be spotted against sharp contours. Those are minor stumbling blocks to what Creature showcases in broader light sources and during the daytime, though: immersive depth of field while overlooking the extent of the island atmosphere; striking fine detail in close-ups on faces, clothing, and artifacts underneath an impressive veil of grain; and persistently convincing flesh tones, crisp watery blues, and verdant greens in foliage. Despite the elevated contrast, the grimy details of the creature and the atmospheric lighting pouring in throughout the research facility upon its morbid details (especially sickly-green jars with preserved biology experiments) create an absorbing HD climate. Wish other '90s films received this kind of treatment.
The audio is no slouch either, clocking in with a robust 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track with a well-attuned focus on the music and surrounding atmosphere. There aren't a lot of hard-hitting sonic elements throughout the production -- a few intense splashes here and gunshots there, along with lesss-than-expected growls from the beast -- but the ones that are there display moderate strength and clarity. Much more prominent are subtle effects, like the sloshing of water in the cavernous research facility, the rusty creaking of metal, and the hum of boat motors, all of which deliver fine aural balance and enough awareness of mid-level bass for natural effects. Mostly, the track's impressiveness comes in locking in a consistent atmosphere with the bustle of the island and the eeriness of the research facility, underscored with clear effects traveling to the rear channels and insistent, buoyant scoring that unsubtly adjusts the mood. It's a fine track that sinks its teeth into what the sound design needs.
Special Features:
Nothin', unless you want to count multi-colored menu designs annotating the miniseries' different broadcast nights.
Final Thoughts:
Peter Benchley's Creature attempts to stretch the simplicity of a creature-feature into something twice as long than it needs to be, hoping that its family drama, cultural backdrop, and warped science will sustain enough interest to fill a two-night, three-hour event. Far worse monster movies, both classic and modern, exist out there than Stuart Gillard's adaptation, but that doesn't stop this one from being a watered-down slog that'd like to be both a Spielbergian horror-drama and a schlocky midnight extravaganza. What ends up happening is that the spread-out plot feels more like a delaying action than a sci-fi/suspense backdrop, and the thrills born from it aren't meaty enough to justify those limp batches of borrowed storytelling. Olive Films' Blu-ray does a bang-up job of presenting the '90s miniseries with digital aplomb, though, which will make a Rental a very satisfying experience.
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