This Roger Corman directed spoof of spy, gangster and monster movies is much better than one can expect, especially if you can pay attention. Intentionally silly and it has some genius moments (that phone booth on the reef), the film has never meant to be taken seriously as other monster movies before that. In that sense Roger Corman parodied everything he had done before.The script was put together in three days by fast writing expert Charles B. Griffith and was shot on location of Puerto Rico together with two other Corman's productions 'Last Woman on Earth' (which he directed himself) and 'Battle of Blood Island'. That is the reason why three main stars are same as in 'Last Woman'. It seems that Corman went deliberately cheesy monster costume with tennis balls for eyes, as the intention was to make a comedy. As actor Anthony Carbone later said, they had to concentrate hard not to laugh at it.Opening theme music is exactly same as it was in 'The Little Shop of Horrors' and was originally written for 'A Bucket of Blood' by Fred Katz. That score was used in total of seven Roger Corman's productions. That's how cheap the great legend of cheapies was.'Creature from the Haunted Sea' is mostly misunderstood because the film is too silly even for Corman, but I guess lot of that misunderstanding comes from people that doesn't realize it was meant to be comedy. Not the greatest of them all, but still quite an enjoyable mess.

Once this thing came to a conclusion, I sat for a minute and thought about how I wanted to punch Corman and Griffith in their respective chops for inflicting this movie on me. Based on the lines the actors spout at various points in the movie, this is apparently supposed to be a comedy of sorts, the same way "Little Shop Of Horrors" and "Bucket Of Blood" were horror-comedies. Well, for whatever reasons, those movies worked, and boy this one sure doesn't. Comedy is hard. Timing is everything in a comedy, and a spoof only works if the timing and art direction in it are better than whatever the subject of the spoof is. With its washed out, smeary photography and muddy, barely understandable vocals, and barely-there non- performances, it's obvious in the first minute that this movie is too raw and unpolished to get the timing right. A few more takes, a little bit better blocking, a few rewrites of a couple of the dopier scenes in the screenplay...even a more careful edit to weed out some of the dead air and draggy spots..."Creature" might have been at least mildly amusing. Or if they'd given up on the comedy and done a straight monster flick, it would have been a "5" instead of the "3". "Creature" isn't even especially good for a movie shot in less than 10 days. You can give this one a miss if you see it offered on cable or a late night horror host show.

a notoriously bad man decides he is going to give a lift to some exiles from Cuba and tries and double crosses them,,, he and his crew , change course and they decide that they want to get rid of them permantly. they tell of the legend of a creature that comes out of the sea to scare the people,, then much to their surprise the creature turns out to be real after all, this film is a Roger Corman production and shouldn't be taken to seriously. It's more funny than anything else. so don't expect it to win an Oscar's or anything like that,, lot's of comedy, and double crosses,, not a bad "b" movie,, I rate it as average.

A man gets his tennis shoes polished and the shoeshine boy sticks a note in his customer's sock . A shot rings out and the shoeshine boy drops dead . The customer runs down the street hotly pursued by a couple of Rabbis . Well that's what the scene looked like to me and questioned where this film might be heading " But Theo why would someone be getting tennis shoes polished and why do Rabbis go around shooting people ? " Look sit down and shut up . We're not holding a question and answer session here . No doubt Roger Corman thought he could get away with making a low to no budget comedy horror movie but even the great Robert Towne can't do anything with the script probably because the contribution he made to it is to play the hero character Sparks Moran and read out the lines and read them out very badly . Towne appearing in his Corman production pseudonym Ed Wain is even worse here than in LAST WOMAN ON EARTH but he's not helped by Charles B Griffith screenplay which even involves a scene in the pre-credits for Towne/Wain to don a cunning disguise by putting on sunglasses and a false moustache ! Perhaps Corman should have got Towne to write the screenplay and cast Griffith as the hero ? As it transpires Moran is a secret agent and he's in league with Cuban patriots kicked out by Castro who still wear their army uniforms and carry their weapons around . Moran crosses them and has to dodge all sorts of mean nasty men who are out to get him and a consignment of Cuban gold . Neither the sound mix and the Cuban accents are tolerable so it is almost something of a relief when subtitles appear because at least then you know what the characters are saying . I say " almost " because this film is incredibly intolerable . Despite my one line summary of it feeling like a parody of a thriller by Benny Hill there's nothing genuinely enjoyable about it even for people who enjoy bad movies and is quite possibly the worst film Corman made