Black Lagoon Legacy

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October 7, 2025:

HERE BE SPOILERS!

In the pantheon of monster movies, Creature from the Black Lagoon stands as a unique entry. The film is intriguing in concept and chilling in execution — and it broke the mould for early horror films.

Produced by Universal Studios in 1954, the film was directed by Jack Arnold, who was already an old hand at making horror and science fiction exploitation films. Aside from Creature from the Black Lagoon, Arnold helmed such classics as This Island Earth, It Came from Outer Space, and The Incredible Shrinking Man.

Creature from the Black Lagoon set photo

Creature from the Black Lagoon was one of the last in a series of initially unrelated monster movies which began in 1923 and concluded in 1960. Over the course of these four decades, Universal essentially wrote the book on Gothic horror cinema. Today, these films are collectively known as the Universal Monster Movies. They range from classic flicks like Bela Lugosi's Dracula to those you've never even heard of, such as Weird Woman, produced in 1944.

What made Creature from the Black Lagoon unique was how it upended many of the monster/horror tropes common to the 1950s and '60s Cold War years. Unlike a lot of the other horror films of that time, it was an original concept inspired by an indigenous Amazonian myth about the Yacuruna, a race of "water men" who could be both dangerous and helpful to humanity. Although the film never explicitly mentions this legend as it relates to the eponymous creature — known to the protagonists as the "gillman" — the supernatural nature of the animal is certainly implied.

As a fan of the original film from my childhood, I wanted to revisit it, its two sequels, and the recently published graphic novel, Universal Monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives, as a continuation of the narrative. Before starting, I should note that the films were made during a time when movie studios were not particularly concerned with continuity, and budgets were often meager. Still, creative minds can accomplish a great deal with a little, so let's get started!

The Original Film

If you've spent any time watching horror films from the 1950s — and I have spent way more time than I'd like to admit — there's a specific format they usually follow. Strange discoveries, deaths, or disappearances occur in middle America, often in small towns or suburbs, and the culprit is ultimately identified as some kind of "outsider." Sometimes these outsiders are juvenile delinquents, sometimes extraterrestrials, and sometimes monsters or animals mutated by atomic weapons or waste. There's been plenty written about how these tropes were reflective of the xenophobic attitudes of the Cold War, with monsters standing in for the existential threat of Communism. Creature from the Black Lagoon is notable for deviating from these tropes by setting the film on the Amazon River and portraying the main characters (mostly) as seekers of knowledge rather than destroyers of threats.

The movie begins with a Brazilian scientist named Dr. Carl Maia (Antonio Moreno) discovering a fossilized claw with five webbed fingers stuck in ancient sediment along the Amazon River. To help him understand the discovery and find the rest of the fossil, Dr. Maia calls in ichthyologist Dr. David Reed (Richard Carlson) and his colleagues Dr. Mark Williams (Richard Denning) and Kay Lawrence (Julie Adams). The scientists believe the rest of the fossil was washed downstream into an isolated lagoon, which native legend claims is cursed. To investigate further, they charter a tramp steamer with a local crew and head down the river.

Once in its realm, the amphibious "gillman" takes a particular interest in Kay. Why is never really explained, other than the fact that having shrieking women being carried away by monsters was already a cliché by 1954, thanks mainly to films like King Kong (1933), which did it so well. The scenes of the monster stalking Kay from beneath the water are immediately reminiscent of modern horror films like Jaws, and Steven Spielberg has even called out Creature from the Black Lagoon as one of his primary inspirations. Compare the two movies in the clips below.

The gillman eventually reveals itself. However, even after it kills and injures several members of the expedition, the scientists remain steadfast in their goal to study the animal, believing it to be a prehistoric species that has survived for millions of years in the isolation of the Amazon River Basin. The police and the military are refreshingly absent from the plot, allowing the focus to remain on scientific inquiry even though the scientists bicker — and come to blows — over the best way to accomplish this.

Portrayed through remarkable makeup effects and underwater cinematography, the gillman is both an object of fear and fascination. Rather than just being inexplicably malicious like so many monsters of that period, the creature displays intelligence and cunning in its ability to evade capture, set traps, and even construct a barrier at the lagoon's mouth to prevent the steamer from leaving. This all suggests motives beyond a monstrous bloodlust — pointing towards territoriality and self-defense. These elements laid the groundwork for future horror to explore themes about humanity's hubris and the exploitation of nature.

Yet despite all these positives, the film ends as so many monster movies do... after the gillman abducts Kay, it is tracked to its subterranean lair and presumably shot dead. It is a disappointing, but not unexpected, end to an otherwise laudable film.

The Creature Returns... Again and Again...

Creature from the Black Lagoon was such an unexpected hit that it almost single-handedly revived interest in the 3-D movie experience, a new technology in the 1950s. As a result, two sequels were rushed into production and released in 1955 and 1956.

Despite also being helmed by Jack Arnold, Revenge of the Creature abandoned most of what made its predecessor great. The bulk of the action takes place in Ocean Harbor Oceanarium (which is today known as Marineland Dolphin Adventure) after the gillman is captured in the Amazon and put on permanent display by chaining him to the bottom of a large pool. Presumably, the Oceanarium was given some promotional consideration, as the film's plot is often interrupted by incongruous scenes of aquarists feeding or training dolphins while crowds of middle-class white people watch through little portholes. There is some semblance of scientific investigation as a different trio — Prof. Clete Ferguson (John Agar), ichthyology student Helen Dobson (Lori Nelson), and Oceanarium animal keeper Joe Hayes (John Bromfield) — discover that the gillman has language and reasoning skills, which they strangely assess by tempting him with food and then administering electric shocks. I don't know which universities awarded these people their degrees, but sadism appears to have been part of the curriculum.

Any spirit of discovery falls away completely when the gillman (understandably) escapes from the Oceanarium and disappears into the Atlantic. Since a gillman uncontrolled is an intolerable situation in the 1950s, enter the men with guns. From here, the movie quickly devolves into cliche montages of frantic newscasters and spinning headlines warning Americans along the Atlantic seaboard about the threat of the creature. Posses are formed, Helen is abducted (again, for some reason), and ultimately the beast meets his end in the same way he did in the first film — gunned down and left to sink into the ocean depths.

The following year brought us The Creature Walks Among Us, helmed by a different director, John Sherwood. The film was so different in both tone and themes, that it almost stands as a wholly separate work from the previous two.

Having survived the gunshot wounds it sustained in Revenge of the Creature, the gillman has been living a peaceful life in the Florida Everglades. However, this changes when a rich and mentally disturbed medical doctor, William Barton (Jeff Marrow), becomes convinced that the monster holds the key to advancing human evolution. As in the first film, much of the action is centered around a boat — this time a luxury yacht rather than a tramp steamer. The "science team," such as it is, is entirely male. However, Barton's fast-driving, gun-wielding trophy wife, Marcia (Leigh Snowden), is thrown in to create constant distractions among the men-folk.

And in a sense, The Creature Walks Among Us is more about Marcia than the gillman, as it takes numerous detours into her abusive relationship with her husband, or has her fending off constant advances from their tour guide, Jed Grant (played by Gregg Palmer). In the end, our sympathies are divided between this spoiled yet abused woman and the monster that's so physiologically changed by Dr. Barton that it grows to enormous proportions, becomes so humanlike they decide to dress it in clothes, and can no longer breathe underwater. In a curious twist, however, rather than abducting the female protagonist as it did in the first two films, the gillman actually rescues Marcia when Jed sexually assaults her. I must admit, it was enormously satisfying to watch the hulking creature throw Jed into a wall. Indeed, one has to wonder who exactly the 'monster' is in this movie because there are so many options to choose from!

Of all three films, the ending of The Creature Walks Among Us is the most ambiguous. Having once again escaped its captors, the creature stumbles back into the ocean... presumably to drown because it was already established that it could no longer breathe underwater.

Whatever the gillman's fate, it's an inauspicious end for a film series that was initially so intriguing.

The Black Lagoon Today

Between 1956 and 2024, there were no fewer than five failed attempts to reboot Creature from the Black Lagoon. Even Guillermo del Toro, one of my favorite directors, made an effort that ultimately culminated in this excellent 2017 film, The Shape of Water. For the most part, however, the gillman was largely forgotten.

Then, in 2024, Universal Monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! was created by Dan Watters (with Ram V and Matthew Roberts) for Image Comics. Known for his work on titles like Home Sick Pilots, Nightwing: On with the Show, and Batman: Detective Comics, Watters and associates brought a fresh twist to the legendary gillman by giving him his own comic for the first time. (I'm not counting a handful of knock-off comics from the 1950s that featured similar creatures.)

Set seventy years after the events of the original film, the story introduces us to a determined journalist named Kate Marsden. Kate is on a relentless hunt for a notorious serial killer, Darwin Collier, deep within the Amazon jungle. Despite her deep trauma from when Collier attempted to drown her, Kate is determined to bring him to justice. When bodies begin to wash up on the riverbank, she's certain that the serial killer is back at work.

The locals, however, have a different theory. They believe that a legendary monster dwelling in the Black Lagoon is responsible for the deaths. Kate discovers that Collier is exploiting this legend to hide in the lagoon, a place shrouded in fear due to the monster tales that have been told. Her investigation takes a surprising turn when she ventures into the area and encounters the gillman lurking among the trees. When she accidentally falls into the raging river, the gillman drags her back to shore, where she's later discovered by Dr. Edwin Thompson. Dr. Thompson and his associate, Christiano, are also searching the river's edge of elusive prey — the gillman himself!

Navigating both the perilous rainforest and the drug cartel operating within, Kate, Dr. Thompson, and Christiano discover that the paths for both the gillman and the serial killer lead to the Black Lagoon. Indeed, Collier has taken up residence in the creature's cave (presumably the same lair seen in the original film) and has been transforming himself into a facsimile of the gillman, including grafting claws onto his hands. In a climactic showdown, the gillman and Kate work together to take down the serial killer, but at the end, it's Kate's fate that remains unknown.

Having been so deprived of continuity in the films, I was hoping the comic would answer some lingering questions. Alas, it did not. For starters, the story is more about Kate's obsession with the serial killer than it is about the monster. While the book and movies have long teased the "myth" of the gillman — referred to in this comic as Cipactli, a primeval sea monster from Aztec mythology even though the book takes place in Peru not Mexico — it provided no new insight into the creature's lore. And although I recognize that the comic was not intended to be a direct sequel to the movies, one still had to wonder where this gillman came from... In the films, there appeared to be only one, and it presumably died at the end of The Creature Walks Among Us. Is this a new gillman... or the same one who somehow reverted to his previous physical form and found his way back to the Amazon? Or was it so supernatural that it was downright invincible?

In some ways, the comic has more similarities to The Creature Walks Among Us than to the first two movies. As it did with Marcia in Walks, the creature acts as Kate's protector and intercedes when violent men enter the picture. There's also the obvious commentary on violence toward women in general, but this time, there's no doubt that the actual "monster" is human in the form of Darwin Collier!

In conclusion, while Universal Monsters: Creature from the Black Lagoon Lives! offers an exciting and suspenseful journey, it may disappoint some readers for failing to fully integrate the legendary creature into its central plot. The gillman, though iconic, feels almost incidental — a supporting character in the tale of human cruelty, obsession and darkness.

Alas, I wanted more about the gillman himself. Maybe one day I'll get it.