Gill-man
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The Gill-man is the titular character of the 1954 black-and-white science fiction film Creature from the Black Lagoon and it's two sequels Revenge of the Creature (1955) and The Creature Walks Among Us (1956). The Gill-man's popularity as an iconic monster of cinema has led to numerous cameo appearances, most notably in an episode of The Munsters and The Monster Squad.
Biology
The Gill-man is fully amphibious, capable of breathing both in and out of the water. As shown in the first film, it is vulnerable to Rotenone.
The Gill-man's scaley skin is extremely tough, which combined with a fast acting healing factor, allows it to survive wounds which would be fatal to humans, such as gunshots and full emolation. As shown in the third film, the creature's body will automatically develop lungs should it's gills be irreperably damaged.
Fictional character biography
Creature from the Black Lagoon
The last surviving member of a race of amphibious humanoids which lived during the Devonian age, the Gill-man (as christened by Dr. Thompson) dwelled in a lagoon located in a largely unexplored area of the Amazon rainforest. The creature was apparently known to the natives, as the captain of a boat dubbed the "Rita" mentioned local legends on a "man-fish".
After having found the fossilized remains of another Gill-man, a marine biology institute funds an expedition to the Amazon in order to find more remains. Though the Gill-man reacts violently to the intrusion, it develops a soft spot for the team's only female member; Kay and repeatedly tries to abduct her, going as far as building a makeshift dam to prevent their boat from escaping. After having killed numerous members of the expedition, the creature takes Kay to it's underwater lair, where it is tracked down by the remaining survivors and riddled with bullets. The creature sinks into the depths of the lagoon.
Revenge of the Creature
The Gill-man survives and is captured and sent to the Ocean Harbor Oceanarium in Florida, where it is studied by an animal psychologist and his ichthyology student. The psychologist's attempts at communicating with the Gill-man are hampered by it's attraction to his student. The Gill-man breaks free from it's tank and escapes into the ocean. It is not long before it begins stalking the Icthiology student and kidnaps her. The Gill-man is soon tracked down and once again repeatedly shot, forcing it into the ocean.
The Creature walks among us
After living for a short while in a Florida river, the creature is found again, and after a vicious struggle, is accidentally immolated. The Gill-man's injuries are so severe that it's scales and gills fall off, forcing it's captors to perform surgery on it to prevent it from suffocating. X-rays on the creature show it has begun developing a land animal's lung structure, so a tracheotomy is performed, opening an air passage to the lungs, transforming the Gill-man into an air-breathing, nearly human animal. Dressing it in a suit made of sail cloth, the creature is taken to a California estate where it is imprisoned within an electric fence. The creature escapes into the ocean, where it presumably drowns.
In literature
Creature from the Black Lagoon novelization
The 1977 novelization of Creature from the Black Lagoon by Carl Dreadstone offers a completely different origin for the Gill-man, who in this version of the story is a hermaphroditic giant, almost as big as the Rita herself, weighing in at thirty tons. This Gill-man is both cold blooded and warm blooded and also has a long whiplike tail. The gigantic creature is dubbed "AA", for "Advanced Amphibian," by the expedition team members. After slaying most of the team members, destroying a Sikorsky helicopter, and kidnapping Kay more than once, the creature is killed by the crew of a US Navy torpedo boat.
Time's Black Lagoon
In Paul Di Filippo's fan fiction novel 'Time's Black Lagoon, the Gill-man is depicted as descending from a race of extraterrestrials who came to Earth during the Devonian period on a giant spaceship called "The Mother". The Gill-people have the ability to communicate telepathically among themselves and among the human characters. Highly telepathic individuals are alphas in their tribal communities, and include "Fleshmolders", "Mudshapers", "Fishcallers", etc.
The Creature from the Black Lagoon itself is a degenerate member of this race, descended from an individual who explored deep in the ocean and became exposed to archaebacteria, becoming deformed and insane, driven to infect others with the disease. Eventually there were no healthy gill-people left, and the race's numbers dwindled over the epochs to one individual in the 1950s, which is the one that appears in the original film.
In popular culture
- The creature made a cameo appearance on an episode of TV's The Munsters as visiting Uncle Gilbert.
- The Gill-man also appears in the non-Universal release The Monster Squad (1987) along with Count Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, and the Wolf Man. He was portrayed by Tom Woodruff, Jr.
- In the Simpsons episode "There's Something about Marrying", Bart and Milhouse play various pranks on a Huell Howser look-alike. One of them is where they go fishing in a lake contaminated by the power plant, and the lookalike gets attacked by a gill man-like creature, which originally seemed like Blinky, the oft-referenced three-eyed fish.
- In the Family Guy episode, "I Never Met the Dead Man", the Griffin family catches a creature strongly resembling the "Gill-man", while fishing.
- In Sonic Adventure 2, a small version of the creature is used to strengthen a chao, it also causes the ball on its head to become a fireball.
- In the comedy Twins, Vincent Benedict (Danny DeVito) makes a joke reference to the movie when he criticizes his brother's (Arnold Schwarzenegger) origin at one point.
- The horror/heavy/punk thrash band Frankenstein Drag Queens From Planet 13 did a track entitled "Creature From The Black Lagoon". Other rockers who have paid tribute to the Creature include Dave Edmunds ("Creature from the Black Lagoon" on his 1979 album "Repeat When Necessary"--which is actually about the monster) and The Cramps ("Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon" on their 1990 album "Stay Sick!"--only the title references the monster). The American heavy metal band Iced Earth has a song on its "Horror Show" album entitled "Dragon's Child" that is a tribute to the Creature.
- In the novel It by Stephen King, It takes the form of the creature to kill Eddie Corcoran
- Tim Burton's film The Nightmare Before Christmas had a background character who resembled the creature and was female.
- Caitlín R. Kiernan's short story, "From Cabinet 34, Drawer 6," postulates that sightings of H. P. Lovecraft's "Deep Ones" inspired the making of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. A New England paleontologist in the story discovers a fossil hand almost identical to that in the film, and she names the strange creature Grendelonyx innsmouthensis ("Grendel's claw from Innsmouth").
- In the Castlevania series of games, the Mer-men strongly resemble the "Gill Man".
- In a sketch in the Robot Chicken episode "Shoe", a man encounters the creature. The creature mentions that he would prefer being called something like "The creature from the African American lagoon".
- In the anime and manga Princess Resurrection, the characters are attacked by a tribe of monsters resembling the creature while vacationing by a lagoon, who desire Hime's blood to make them immortal and keep their kind from dying out. In a possible reference to the novel version of the movie, one of the creatures is roughly 30 feet tall.
- This film is mentioned by Para-Medic in the video game Metal Gear Solid 3 after Naked Snake decides to save the game.
- In the first installent of the video game "Tony Hawk's Underground", an unlockable character resembling the creature from the black lagoon is referred to as "T.H.U.D" (Tony Hawk's Underground Dweller).