PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Creature horror goes back to the origins of the genre. From the early silent films to rise of the Universal monsters, to the 80’s slasher boom, larger than life menaces have come in all forms for decades. But with the rise of what fans call “elevated horror”, these creatures have taken on more forms than ever before. In A Creature Was Stirring, we are largely left to unravel this macabre mystery along with the characters in the movie.
Let’s take a look into what makes this creature feature special.
A Creature Was Stirring was written by Shannon Wells (in what seems to be their feature debut) and directed by Damien LeVeck (The Cleansing Hour 2019). It stars Chrissy Metz (American Horror Story TV Series 2014), Annalise Basso (Ouija: Origin of Evil 2016), Scout Taylor-Compton (Halloween 2007, read our facts about this movie here) and Connor Paolo (Friend Request 2016). It follows a mother who manages the care of her daughter, who she believes to have some ability to transform into a malcontented monster. As she keeps her daughter under lock and key, the intrusion of two invaders throws those plans into a tailspin, resulting in the monster being unleashed.
The shining light in A Creature Was Stirring is…well, the lighting. Each room in this claustrophobic house has different colors, ranging from blazing neon in many different hues. This gives the movie a unique and stylized feel, and also adds to its replay-ability as the audience scrambles to connect the colors to different symbols and emotions. The visual positives don’t stop at just the lighting though, as the transformation scenes feel visceral and painful for the characters to endure. Scout Taylor-Compton is indie horror royalty, but the mother-daughter duo of Metz and Basso do a really nice job in the grounded but eccentric portrayals.
This movie chooses not to rest on being another tortured werewolf film, though Basso does seem to channel a bit of Lon Chaney Jr. in The Wolfman. A Creature Was Stirring aims to go a bit more in the way of something more ambiguous and overarching, like The Babadook. The outside characters are written a bit heavy-handed at times, and the story beats require some big leaps in logic to get to the final act. It feels like the pacing is off at times because of how fast everything piles up in the last twenty minutes.
But even with those qualms, A Creature Was Stirring should be commended for tackling something with a unique voice and a bigger picture in mind. This movie is available for streaming immediately.
