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Night Creature

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Horror icon Donald Pleasence (Halloween 1 and 2, Raw Meat, Alone In The Dark) is big-game hunter extraordinaire, Axel McGregor in this non-creepy, sleep-inducer. McGregor is so obsessed w/ a man-eating black leopard, that he has it captured and brought to his private island so he can hunt it. All is well until McGregor's family (including the lovely Nancy Kwan) pays a surprise visit, unaware of the danger they're in. Unfortunately, what could / should have been a tense, ferocious story of survival is actually a bland test of endurance (for the viewer). It was hard to keep my eyes open...

"Night Creature" can be described as a cross between "The Most Dangerous Game" and "Gilligan's Island." Actually, it can be described as a whole lot of things, all of which would be more interesting than this 1977 low-budget film. Donald Pleasence, still a year away from being rediscovered in the classic slasher flick "Halloween," plays Axel MacGregor, a millionaire big game hunter and writer who brings a killer black leopard to his own private little island. However, his hunt is interrupted by some unexpected visitors, his two daughters and a boyfriend, which gives the leopard some choices in terms of dinner. Speaking of low points in careers, Nancy Kwan, who started off big time in movies with "The World of Suzie Wong" and "Flower Drum Song," plays Leslie. If you never thought of Donald Pleasence as macho man, then "Night Creature" will show why you were wise never to waste brain cells on such thoughts because this is just miscasting of the first order. There are some moments of tension, but they are all due to the big bad black cat out there in the jungle. When you end up rooting for the killer animal in a film like this, then you know that is not a good sign.

NIGHT CREATURE is one of those trademark late 70s movies that moves so slow it becomes uncomfortable waiting for something to happen. And even when it does, it is so poorly filmed and edited, you don't really see much of what's going on. Add the wearisome storyline of a great hunter who loves hunting more than his two daughters, bring them together on a deserted island with a deadly black leopard and talk the audience to death. That's basically all NIGHT CREATURE accomplishes. Donald Pleasance is ludicrously inept as Axel McGregor, who brings the captured leopard to his island to kill it; and Nancy Kwan fares little better as one of his daughters. Dull and tedious, little to recommend.

A voiceover accompanies and describes celebrated writer and hunter Alex MacGregor (Donald Pleasence) while he and his attendants plod through a Thai jungle during this film's opening scene, as they search for a deadly rogue black leopard that has killed numerous local villagers. Alex is attacked and savaged by the animal, and made permanently lame as a consequence, and his offer of a ten thousand dollar reward for the beast if captured unharmed is soon claimed by successful Siamese beaters, following which the hunter keeps the caged mankiller at his remote palatial home while preparing for a rematch. The purpose of this revived hunt will be for MacGregor to expunge a newly found emotion within him: fear (although his high-powered scoped rifle should be of no little assistance in that regard), and after giving his servants two weeks off with pay, loads his weapon with nine rounds (for the fabled number of lives), frees the creature and limps off alone in pursuit of it. This is an interesting notion for what promises to be a stirring tale of adventure, but then the plot shifts to Bangkok, where are found the two daughters of Alex, Leslie (Nancy Kwan) and Georgia (Jennifer Rhodes with the work's best performance), along with the latter's child, all about to embark upon a journey to pay their father a surprise call. The three females are escorted by a transplanted Texan, a tour guide in the Thai capital and a former lover of Georgia, and he becomes romantically embroiled with her sister immediately after the group's arrival at the vacated MacGregor estate, while the title character is only seen as he threatens the visitors, the big game hunter seemingly having been swallowed by the encroaching flora as he seeks his hardly elusive prey. The matter of Axel's struggle with fear becomes subordinate to his offspring's emotional entanglements, although there are many slow motion closeups of the brute to enliven the action in a film that is bedevilled with serious flaws of continuity.