“He isn’t reverting he’s remembering.”
After the Gill-man got all shot up again by humans it returned to the sea. Reports have been sporadically coming in that it has taken refuge in the Everglades. A team of scientists led by very rich and very crazy sociopath named Dr. William Barton (Jeff Morrow) are on board the Vagabondia III. They want to capture the creature “for study”. Barton is also abusive to his wife Marcia (Leigh Snowden) as well as jealous of any man that is around her. Their guide Jed Grant (Gregg Palmer) makes several passes at Marcia. Even though Marcia is not interested in him, her husband thinks something is going on.
Jed and Dr. Tom Morgan (Rex Reason) decide to make a dive to see if they can find the Gill-man. Marcia decides to go too. Her husband forbids it. Just to push his buttons, she goes anyway. They have been married for 10 years. Barton married his trophy wife when she was seventeen. By now she knows were all his buttons are and she pushes them with regularity. That’s what you get for being a jealous turd. During the dive Marcia swims too deep. Jed and Tom abandon the dive, rescue Marcia and return to the surface.
When they get to a point in the Everglades where it is too shallow for the boat they continue on in the dingy. When the creature attacks them it is accidentally burned. The Gill-man collapses. They bring it back to the boat and find that it has sustained third degree burns on most of its body.
Barton, Tom and their colleagues Dr. Borg (Maurice Manson) and Dr. Johnson (James Rawley) do emergency surgery to try to save it. While bandaging the Gill-man, the doctors notice that he is shedding his gills and even breathing using a kind of lung system. When the bandages are removed it is shown to have a human-like skin underneath the scales. With the creature looking more human it is given clothes. They hope they can get it use to living among humans. I’m not sure they were trying to do him any favors.
Once the creature is on dry land the movie gets into its philosophical mode. Who’s the creature, who’s the human? Yada, yada, yada.
“The Creature Walks Among Us” was released in 1956 and was directed by John Sherwood. This is the one that you either like or don’t like. I’m still trying to make up my mind but I’m leaning toward meh. The pacing seemed a little slow to me and there isn’t much action. The underwater scene was good but there was really only one of them. And I miss the way he looked before he burned up and humanized. Besides, who wants to watch a husband and wife fight all the time?
Unless you like the philosophical aspects of the story this might be one to just have to round out your collection.