James Mangold implied he would like to make a new version of Swamp Thing this week, and James Gunn has stated that there will be a new version on the new DCU slate.
I hadn’t seen Swamp Thing (1982) in many, many years. So I found it online yesterday and gave it a re-watch. This won’t be a huge review, more of a recap. There is also some news about The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) at the end.
You know the story, a scientist gets turned into a swamp plant monster and his evil nemesis tries to get his formula and gets turned into one too. There’s a beautiful female researcher that Swamp Thing falls in love with… Blah blah blah.
The story is wafer thin and had been done a hundred times before, just in different guises. I’ve never read the comics, but I understand that Swampy has much more dialogue and is a more “fleshed” out character?
It stars Louis Jordan, Adrienne Barbeau, Ray Wise, David Hess, Nicholas Worth, Don Knight, and Dick Durock. It’s written and directed by Wes Craven.
The overall direction is serviceable, I mean, there’s nothing outstanding here. Although, I kept thinking how horrible it must have been filming the entire movie in a swamp. I can’t imagine the cast or crew enjoying the shoot.
For me, the story all that good, and I have no idea if it was written from the comics or not. If you are a fan of the comics, let me know?
The biggest let down is with the practical effects. Swampy still looks pretty good, apart from when he loses an arm and you can clearly see where it’s tucked away in the suit. But the transformation at the end, from Arcane into whatever he turns into, was just bad.
I did like how the end evil creature has a sword, though.
I did appreciate the movie though. It’s fun in that 80s camp way, where it’s never going to be the greatest movie of all time, but you just sit back and enjoy it. I also found the unrated version, which has a full 53 seconds of Barbeau’s boobs.
It now turns out that The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) is getting the 4k treatment and a UHD release on 7th Feb. The synopsis for the sequel is:
“After her mother’s mysterious death, Abigail Arcane travels to the Florida swamps to confront her resurrected evil stepfather Dr. Anton Arcane. In an attempt to stave off the effects of aging, Dr. Arcane, assisted by Dr. Lana Zurrell, combines genes from various swamp animals and human beings, creating an army of monsters known as Un-Men. When Abby arrives, Dr. Arcane is hell-bent on taking his own stepdaughter’s life in the name of science… that is until she is rescued by SWAMP THING in this must-see sequel to the original cult classic and based on the award-winning DC Comics series!”
I don’t think I’ve ever seen the sequel, so I might wait for the 4k release and give it a go.
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, by Wes Craven, about a swamp-man-creature who saves the day, in that camp 80s way.){kind=link}