Here’s a classic monster movie. It has the typical plot of an "evil" or misunderstood creature/monster that people want to kill or capture and the beautiful girl that the animal finds fascinating. This one begins with a bodiless overture given by a narrator that quotes from Genesis, chapter one. He talks about God forming the earth, and then goes directly into telling us the billions of years that it took the planet to form. I guess the producers were trying to cover all the bases even then.

Most of the movie blatantly proclaims evolution. They seem to be obsessed with finding some evolutionary links that they can study in the hopes of making humans more adaptable for when we finally leave this planet. It’s kind of sad, and it’ll mess with the minds of those that aren’t well grounded in the Word.

If you’re a Godzilla fan, then you’ll realize where the American company that Toho worked with stole the score for "King Kong vs. Godzilla" when that movie was brought to America. This can make one almost nostalgic…because the Godzilla movie is a lot better than this movie.

Well, a scientist/paleontologist finds a fossilized webbed hand in some rock and takes it off to get analyzed by some experts. They speculate about its origins and what "man" it came from. Finally, they go off to try and unearth the rest of the thing. Unfortunately, while they were deciding this, a living creature goes into the camp and slaughters the people that were left there. Of course, these people didn’t really put up a fight, but that’s not here nor there.

Anyway, David is the marine specialist that the paleontologist went to see. He has a girl named Kay. They all go to the bone collector’s site and discover the wrecked camp and dead residents. Watch for the odd petrified hand! SCARY! The first thing you see of the creature is its hand as it slithers in and out of the water to some "creepy" atmospheric music. It does this as Kay waits for the MEN to check the camp out. We couldn’t have a women see death…but just as the hand almost reaches her, she’s called in anyway. Yes, they think that the men that were killed were probably slain by a jaguar or something, not a monster…odd, that there were no prints of any sort so close to a river bank…

(As an aside, it makes one wonder if the dead man’s hand is symbolic of the creature in some way…it’s hand is in a grasping shape in most of the movie too.)

So, after digging for a while, the people get annoyed that they can’t find anymore fossil remains. Thus, our intrepid adventurers postulate that mayhaps the rests of the remains washed down river. And off they go to a place that the natives call, "The Black Lagoon."

Here, the adventurers find some more of the rock from whence came the skeletal remains of the thing, but not much else is found…until the girl goes for a swim. She decides to do this right after everyone else disappears into the bowels of the boat so that if anything should happen to her, no one would be the wiser. In this way, we see the creature swim beneath the well-proportioned girl as she obliviously goes this way and that. Eventually, she is missed and gets back on the boat for a reprimand…but just as they start to tell her how dumb she is, the boat’s net catches something and after much work, they raise a wrecked net with a claw or something imbedded in it that makes them believe that one of the things/creatures still exists.

David wants to study it whereas Mark (David’s boss) wants to capture it or better yet, kill it. Various arguments ensue throughout the rest of the movie about what they should do to it as most of their party gets mauled or killed by it. The creature gets on their ship just as easily as anyone else does and it does so many times. The people on the boat don’t seem to know how to set a proper guard. Even after it gets caught due to some odd paralyzing powder, the thing escapes and seriously injures its guard because Kay's body distracts the poor fellow!

Eventually, Kay is caught by the thing near the end and it takes her to its lair. We never learn why it won’t hurt her, although it’s had many chances, the most it’ll do is pick her up. Anyway, she’s rescued by her David and the creature is shot many times with shotguns and then let go. The ending scene looks like the death of the creature, but it must not have been since it has a starring role in two more sequels!

The Good Stuff:

The Bad Stuff:

STORY: 

VIOLENCE:  (Look out! There's a 2-5 second fist fight!)

SEXUAL CONTENT:  (chick in her swimming trunks...)

SFX: 

LANGUAGE:   (There's some shouting!!!)