Michael O'Keefe Check that lame-o-meter. Donald Pleasence is Axel MacGregor, a world renowned writer, test pilot, big game hunter and writer. MacGregor has a lop-sided sense of machismo and his ego has been threatened by a black leopard who attacked him on safari. He has the animal captured alive with the intent to let the beast loose on his private Southeast-Asian island paradise in order to track it down and claim superiority with a high powered rifle. Meanwhile his daughter and granddaughter make an unannounced visit. MacGregor will have more than enough to deal with...right down to his last bullet. The supporting cast includes: Nancy Kwan, Lesly Fine, Ross Hagen and Jennifer Rhodes.

ferbs54 Perhaps I should explain that I am one of those people who are willing to sit through the most egregious crap, just to be able to hear Nancy Kwan's charming Hong Kong accent and see her fabulous zygomatic bones. But even for me, 1978's "Night Creature" was tough to get through. In this one, Nancy and a few others pick the wrong time to pop in on her dad, big-game hunter Donald Pleasence, at his private Thai island in the River Kwai. Donald has just released a preternaturally cunning and spitefully ferocious black leopard to hunt and engage in a battle of wits; a creature that wastes little time going after Nancy's half sister... Anyway, this movie is basically junk. Ineptly lensed and directed, with a weak story and little in the way of suspense, it surely doesn't offer much to the casual viewer. And the DVD in question here doesn't help. The picture is fuzzy and scuzzy, revealing a crummy and scummy 16mm print source, and the sound quality is very poor. Still, somehow, a viewing of "Night Creature" does have its compensations. Pleasence's acting is fun to watch, ranging as it does from hypermaniacal to catatonic. The film is atmospheric in parts, the Thai scenery looks nice, and Nancy Kwan looks even nicer. She is 39 in this film--18 years past her yummy Suzie Wong debut--and still looks very beautiful. Heck, she's still a looker TODAY, at 68! But even those zygomatic bones aren't enough to redeem "Night Creature." This is surely a film for Nancy Kwan completists only. Like me

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) Like many I was suckered into watching this film thinking it was a horror opus with some sort of demonic black panther (leopard?) stalking scantily clad buxom B movie bombshells through the jungles near strategically photographed Angkor-esquire ruins of Thailand. It is but it isn't, and while NIGHT CREATURE isn't a "bad" movie -- there is some camp value to be had here amongst all of the conversations, and one really good extended cat attack scene -- it doesn't have much to recommend it, aside from Donald Pleasence. Like Peter Cushing or Basil Rathbone he elevates the film beyond the dreck level just by appearing in it.Dr. Loomis plays a novelist and great white hunter drawn to equatorial Southeast Asia who takes up the challenge to track down a rogue panther that is mauling local villagers on some sort of island/peninsula/water bound isolated location. Predictably, he freezes up at the last moment of truth when confronting the beast and is maimed for life. "Crippled" is the non-politically correct expression. Other round-eyed Caucasian relatives drop by to visit, there is intrigue and romance under the jungle canopy and next to the photogenic ruins, and at some point the panther emerges from the teeming forests to claim the only white woman in the cast. The creature must be stopped lest it ruin the local tourism business, and Dr. Loomis gets really intense, sits around glowering like a madman while knocking back the native booze & gabbering about the past, and finally lures the panther to go mano-a-mano with his wits, slamming the doors at the last second ... and then skarkers. The film concludes with the surviving Americans getting onto a boat and leaving the natives to their doom, which would have been my suggestion from day one.Filmed in 1978, this is actually one of the "When Animals Attack" vein of thrillers made after the success of crowd-pleasers like JAWS, FOOD OF THE GODS and GRIZZLY. Here the menace is in the form of a sexy trained panther, which means only one thing: Animal rights activists will be offended by how the animal was coerced into performing for the camera. If the movie had been made today the cat would be a computer animation and Ralph Feinnes would have played the Donald Pleasence role, so we can be thankful that the movie was made when it was & by who bothered to show up: It is a forgettable little bit of 70s Saturday afternoon idiocy. It's also funny how the pivotal scenes in the film all seem to involve action being staged with the Angkor-esquire ruins looming in the background. They serve only as a set decoration, whatever relationship the panther has with the ancient traditions that erected the monuments is never delved into, and essentially this is a PG rated (made for cable?) Jungal Trash exploitation film about white people going to the jungles and having all sorts of fascinating adventures while the natives carry the luggage.What the film needed was some sort of lurid angle that would have produced bared breasts or better yet a blasphemous native sexual rite combined with a supernatural kicker. As mentioned above there's one great scene where the cat stalks a woman amidst the ruins, the final images of Dr. Loomis sitting in the boat with the face of the panther superimposed on him were perhaps the most evocative moments in the production ... aside from an excellent monsoon sequence filmed during an actual monsoon. If it sounds like I am just not getting into the spirit of things here you are correct, the film is plodding, unimaginatively staged, derivative, cheap, and has little to recommend it aside from another unhinged Donald Pleasence performance. Perhaps the most compelling reason to acquire a copy and subject yourself to watching it is that it's completely obscure, out of print, and with no anti-animal exploitation disclaimer at the end, likely to stay that way.4/10; Worth a look for Animal Attack fans, otherwise you might want to try NIGHT OF THE SORCERERS, at least that one has some breasts.

jefctaylor With its muddy sound and blurry, grainy film stock, Night Creature is a real chore to watch. Poor choices in casting and music serve to underscore the queasy tone of the movie, which verges on a "Manos: The Hands of Fate" level of badness. The filmmakers have an odd preoccupation with Donald Pleasence' "crazy face," that has earned him the villain role in countless 70's horror. In this "jungle adventure advertised as a horror film" (thanks Psychotronic Film Encylopedia) Pleasance is supposed to be a big game hunter with an Ahab-esquire obsession with his quarry. The repeated fade from Pleasance' beady staring eyes to the black leopard's eyes is supposed to emphasize the connection between them (is Donald Pleasence the "Night Creature?" whoa, deep, man.) None of the human characters are likable; not the "hero," played by the producer in an ugly suit with an unbuttoned shirt, not the two female leads (one to be eaten by the monster, one for a love interest) and not even the little girl, whose peril is supposed to evince some suspense out of this mess. The black leopard, while acting unlike any real animal, behaves like a movie monster, killing for fun not food. Unfortunately, the decision to shoot nearly every scene in bright sunlight (what's the name of this movie again?) and to show the monster in full body view from the very first frame, rob the animal of its ability to be menacing. This movie comes close to "so bad it's good" status, but without the cast of MST3K to help you through it, you'd better give it a miss.