Night Creature (1978)

The great Donald Pleasence plays Axel an adventurer, author, and big game hunter.  When he hears that a panther has been terrorizing some villages he volunteers to go after the creature and kill it.  But instead of killing it he almost is killed by the creature.  This leaves him with both physical and emotional scars.  He then pays hunters 10,000 dollars to capture the panther so that he may hunt it again.  To this end he brings it to his home on a remote island and dismisses the staff.  What he doesn’t know is that his daughters and granddaughter are coming for a visit.  Soon they find themselves trapped on the island with a big cat that is playing with them before finishing it’s prey.

This isn’t at all what I expected when I sat down to watch this movie.  I thought it would be some sort of Jaws rip off with one of my favorite genre actors in it.  But it isn’t that at all.  I guess since I’ve already mentioned Jaws the best way that I can describe this one is in this way.  Imagine if the Spielberg classic focused on the Quinn character drinking and mumbling about how the shark made him afraid and that he can’t have that.  That is what Night Creature is.  The movie is more of a melodrama following the Pleasence character as he tries to deal with his failure tracking down the cat and how it affected his confidence.  Then there are some events on the island that cause him to have a complete breakdown. 

Don’t get me wrong I think that Donald Pleasence is a great actor and I really bought that his character was emotional broken by the events.  He totally sells it and it comes off feeling realistic.  But the rest of the plot is way too thin to support the movie.  When he isn’t on screen all we get are forgettable characters wandering around the jungle or hiding in the house.  It gets tedious real quick and if I’m to be honest I was bored for most of the duration. 

Now I wanted to talk about the creature in Night Creature.  They do a terrible job bringing it to life on the screen.  Most of the time we see the panther sitting or slowly walking towards the camera.  It doesn’t interact with the characters that much.  They also do a terrible job of letting the audience know where the cat is at all times.  So the movie isn’t ever scary and builds zero tension.  I never thought that the characters were in danger.  The movie also has a lousy body count so even the creature seems a bit lame. 

I will give Night Creature some credit for the performance from Pleasence, but that is about all that it does have going for it.  If you are interested in picking this one up for your collection it can be had in a 12-movie set called Scream Theater.  Check the VCI Entertainment website here. 

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2011 John Shatzer