Creature from the Black Lagoon
Dir: Jack Arnold
1954
*****
The Creature from the Black Lagoon is a Jack Arnold B-movie classic and also the birth of the monster movie. I don't mean monster as in King Kong or Godzilla, this is a different kettle of fish (excuse pun). Without Creature from the Black Lagoon you wouldn't have Alien, Predator or many of the serial killer type scary movies we know and love today. They all owe a great deal of gratitude to this film, another one of Jack Arnold's timeless classics. It's also worth mentioning some of the wonderful camera techniques used that are often woefully overlooked. Jack Arnold invented so much of what we see in modern cinema today but is given very little credit. Jaws is actually a complete rip off of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, almost frame for frame.