Main cast: Cristo Fernández (Jorge). Joe Gallina (Tommy), Stephen Aaron-Sipple (Christopher), Chris Kyriacou (Vinnie), Kelsie McDonald (DJ), Jo Hart (Vanessa), Romain Barbey (Dr Serling), Rina Saito (Akane), and Hephzibah Roe (Patty)
Director: Tony Jopia
The publicity materials for Creatures all claim that it is “Gremlins meets Kill Bill meets Shaun of the Dead“. Yeah, well, and all that meets the toilet bowl, because a show that can only compare itself to other movies without touting any of its own merits is a red flag that it’s likely not going to be good, and what a surprise, this one is not good.
Dr Serling is bringing his class, a bunch of unlikable lots that happen to coincide with every horror trope associated with unlikable lots, to an observatory for an astronomy field trip when the head of sheep crash onto a window of their bus. Oops, it looks like something, or some things, have slaughtered quite a number of sheep in the rustic neighborhood. On the bright side, they also find a crashed spaceship with a cute Mogwai, er, alien thing that they call Gizmo.
Well, that’s cute and all, but Gizmo is pursued by a bunch of cute but blue and murderous aliens, and these aliens won’t stop—or stop killing—anyone and anything that stands in their way. Will these lot and Gizmo survive the onslaught all the way to the end of the movie?
I’m surprised Night of the Creeps is left out from the earlier “what meets what” claim, because it also has leech-like things that infect a corpse and turns it into a zombie-like creature. Those things and the aliens are some of the special effects that no doubt ate up much of the tiny budget of this film, but sadly, the bad aliens especially look like store-bought latex puppets animated by folks that are doing this for the first time. What’s worse is that these puppets end up being more convincing actors than the human cast.
Perhaps I can’t blame the cast too much, as the script doesn’t allow them to be anything more than props for what director and co-screenwriter Tony Jopia believes to be prime comedy. Unfortunately for me, I don’t find anything funny here at all. The slapstick comedic parts only make the characters involved to appear more obnoxious and dumb, and the dialogues, meant to be witty, just come off as trying too hard instead. What is meant to be funny just appears tired and played out, like Akane turning out to be a (shocker) samurai-martial artist sort or the Indian bus driver sputtering and heckling like a cringe-inducing Indian driver stereotype.
I know, comedy is subjective, but here, everyone involved in the screenwriting is just borrowing tropes that made other movies successfully and relying on overused jokes for their punchline moments. It’s like watching a group of people trying so hard, every evening, to be comedians when they don’t have the wit or timing to make things work. I feel tired for them as well as embarrassed on their behalf. Give it a rest, guys. Maybe ditch comedy next time—try doing a kung-fu movie or something.
