Horror Histories Vol. 17 - The (failed) Remake from the Black Lagoon!

For this edition of Horror Histories, I’d like to talk about a remake that has yet to be made but is very close to my heart.  If you’ve read this blog with any regularity, you know that my favorite horror movie of all time is The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954).  It’s an amazing film and if you don’t know much about it, go watch it now.  You’re really missing out otherwise.  If you don’t have the time though, you can go here and check out my post from last October. 

Now, if you look at every other big name Universal monster from that period, you’ll notice that each has had a remake (or two, or three) in the last four decades.  The only one who has not been through the reboot machine is the Gill-Man. 

Why?  Well, that’s an interesting story.  It’s been connected to some of the biggest names in Hollywood but it’s never come to fruition.  The stories of those failed attempts make for a fascinating look at the studio machine, so let’s talk about a few of them, shall we?

In 1982, John Landis approached Universal about producing a remake.  The studio was excited and a script was written by legendary screenwriter Nigel Kneale (the Quatermass series).   Landis was pushing for it to be directed by none other than Jack Arnold, the man who wrote and directed the original.  That alone would be enough to make me happy but it gets better.  Rick Baker, the genius behind the effects in An American Werewolf in London as well as many others, had been signed to create the practical effects.  His designs for the costume stayed true to the original Gill-Man suit and this looked like a film to get excited about.  

So what happened?

Landis is a huge fan of the original and he insisted that if Universal was going to let him produce it, then it would have to be in 3-D.  However, the studio  already had all their eggs in another 3-D basket in 1982.  It was Jaws 3-D and Universal didn’t want any competition on the schedule the following summer.  The project fell through and Landis moved on.

The next person to be attached to it was Joe Dante.  Dante was fine with not producing it in 3-D, and he was content to work of Kneale’s script but eventually he decided to pass on it and move on to other projects.  The idea of a remake bounced around for about a decade until it landed in the lap of John Carpenter. 

Of all the names attached to this movie, Carpenter’s is the one I was most excited about.  Anyone who has ever seen what he did with The Thing knows that he would have made this his own and still paid a loving tribute to the original.  He was given the script that Kneale had written but it hadn’t aged particularly well.  That script featured two Gill-Men, one aggressive and the other more humane.   Of course they were fighting over a woman and the rest kind of writes itself in a way. 

Carpenter is quoted as saying that the script was interesting but needed some work to get it where he wanted it to be.  Instead of hiring someone else, he approached Kneale about updating it.  He quickly found that Kneale didn’t want to change a word and according to Carpenter felt he was "above this horror thing".  So  Carpenter drafted screenwriter Tommy Lee Wallace (Halloween III: Season of the Witch) to help him.  

This version started gaining traction and by 1992, Carpenter was giving interviews about different ideas they’d been playing with, even incorporating some Lovecraftian bits about how the Gill-Man came to be.  Universal seemed more interested than ever, tossing around the idea that it would be a summer event movie.  Even more importantly, Carpenter brought back Rick Baker and both swore that the original design from 1954 was almost perfect.  Carpenter is literally quoted as saying, “Why fix it?”

His only caveat was that it needed to look less rubbery.

So what happened here?  There’s not a 100% solid answer on this.  There’s some indication that due to the demise of Carpenter’s Memoirs of an Invisible Man, the studio lost faith.  Whatever the reason, the movie fell by the wayside again and Ivan Reitman picked it up.

Again, he called on Rick Baker for the effects work.  This time around though, Baker didn’t like what he was seeing.  Reitman wanted to totally rework the design of the creature and also play up the evolutionary angle in the script.  The Gill-Man wouldn’t be the only monster in the lagoon and from what Baker’s gone on record as saying, it wasn’t something he was excited to be attached to.

Thankfully, that also fell through.

Gary Ross took a stab at remaking the film and his script was given to Guillermo Del Toro who agreed to direct for a brief time.  I’ve read a synopsis of this script and it’s pretty lame, doing away with what made the original great and replacing it with a battle between good “student” scientists and evil “corporate” scientists in a part of the jungle where evolution has gone insane.  Once again, the Gill-Man is just one of many antagonists and it comes across as something you’d see go direct to video.  Del Toro decided to move on to a different film.

I’ve also seen another variation on that script that had Tom Cruise attached to it at one point.  It involved the Creature being the protector of the Tree of Life.  It was disjointed and read more like a videogame script than a movie.  Think lots of obstacles, jump scares and very little heart.

Around that time, director Peter Jackson was offered a shot at it.  Initially he expressed interest but ultimately asked to direct his own personal passion project, the remake of King Kong.  

Most recently, when Universal announced their half-baked plan to create a shared universe featuring their monsters, Scarlett Johansson was offered a lead role.  With the tanking of Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, that whole plan seems to have been scrapped now which is probably for the best.

While there’s still some talk of remaking the original, at this point I’d be happy with that never happening.  My favorite thing about Guillermo Del Toro moving on when Universal couldn’t get their shit together is that he’s not the type to let that stop him.  While The Shape of Water (2017) isn’t a remake of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and isn’t really a horror film at all, it is very much a continuation of the original 1954 story.  It disregards the two sequels and imagines what could have happened if the Gill-Man had been captured and brought back to a lab for study.  

It’s a brilliant film that’s a love letter to Jack Arnold’s film as well as to cinema itself.  If you’re a Creature fan, you really couldn’t ask for much more.

Five Things You May Not Know About The Creature From The Black Lagoon - A.K.A. The Best Monster Movie Ever

When I think back on the three years I wrote for DVDinmypants.com, one assignment stands far above all the rest. I was privileged to be paired with a writer named Shawn McLoughlin and we were asked to review about twenty Universal Monster films that had just come out in box sets.  Almost every film featuring the classic characters The Wolfman, Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, The Mummy, The Invisible Man and The Creature From The Black Lagoon was included.  It was a daunting task but there may be no series of films I love more than those original black and white Universal monster movies.  Having to pore through those titles to review them rekindled my love for those monsters and renewed my obsession with my hands down favorite, The Gill Man.

Personally, I believe The Creature From The Black Lagoon is the perfect monster movie.  Even though it's over 60 years old, it can still provoke scares out of people who have never seen it before. Scenes have been quoted (sometimes verbally and sometimes cinematically) in blockbuster films that came years later.  

The most famous is the 'underwater ballet' scene between the Gill Man and Julie Adams that directly influenced Spielberg's opening attack sequence in JAWS.  It's got a great script, fantastic acting and effects that were ahead of its time.

So in order to honor my favorite monster movie, here's a list of five little known facts you can pull out to impress people.  However I should warn you that you will come off looking like a super nerd if you actually attempt to break these out at parties. 

1. The film is based off a real myth.

It's true.  The movie was inspired by a tale from South America about a village that was tormented by a half-man/half-fish monster.  The creature demanded a woman as tribute every so often.  No one really knows what he did with them, but apparently they didn't last long.  

You know, the saying goes that there is some truth to every myth. Perhaps an expedition is in order?


2. Orson Welles was involved in the film's genesis.

How he was involved with the Gill-Man is almost a six degrees of separation game, only there's just three degrees.  Welles was at a Hollywood party and he happened to be talking to Mexican cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa.  Figueroa recounted the fish-man story I mentioned above and the conversation was overheard by William Alland.  Alland eventually thought back to that conversation and used the myth as the basis for the original script.  Many, many drafts later it made it to the big screen with no further help from Welles.  Still, if he hadn't had that party I wouldn't have my favorite movie of all time, so I give credit where credit is due.


3.  The head of the creature was designed after a seventeenth century woodcut of a creature called The Sea Bishop.

  

 

That picture says it all, right?  Well, not quite.  As the story goes the creature was first discovered in the Baltic Sea in 1433.  It was presented to the King of Poland who was so fascinated by it that he decided to keep it instead of releasing it back into the water.  It was described as having a fin that looked like a clergyman's cloak and a head that was humanoid and shaped like a bishop's mitre. A group of actual bishops were granted an audience with the strange creature who apparently made gestures to them that it wanted to go back to the sea.  The bishops convinced the king to let it go and when it was put back in the water, it made the sign of the cross and then swam down into the depths.

Of course, then it made its way to the Amazon River, terrorized Julie Adams and company and spawned two sequels.  Somewhere along the way, it must have lost its faith but who could blame him?  It was Julie Adams, for crying out loud!



4.  There was no air tank in the Gill Man costume.

For the original film, Ricou Browning (who played the Gill Man in all of the underwater scenes) had to hold his breath, sometimes for up to four minutes.  The director wanted the creature to look real and since the monster had gills, he thought that having bubbles escape the costume would ruin the effect.  Lucky for him, Browning was a professional swimmer and diver.  In fact, Browning had never aspired to be an actor.  He was a behind the scenes guy and went on to do some fantastic directing work including all of the underwater battle scenes in the James Bond classic Thunderball.

5.  There really is a Creature From The Black Lagoon!

The picture above isn't it though supposedly it looks similar.  Actually, it's an amphibious fossil that was discovered by Jennifer Clack at the East Kirkton Quarry near Edinburgh.  Clack named it eucritta melanolimnetes which literally translates into "creature from the black lagoon".  It existed during the Visean epoch of the Carboniferous period of Scotland. Clack noted that the fossil was discovered in what was once a 'fetid swamp', so the name fit perfectly.

And there you have it.  Five fun facts about The Creature From The Black Lagoon that will get you absolutely nowhere in life.  However it did distract you from doing work, so at least that's something, right?

Thanks for reading!

Oh, and hey!  If you're a horror fan and are looking for a good read, why not check out my book The Wash available exclusively on Amazon!