Curse of the Swamp Creature

I can't begin to tell you how terrible this bottom-of-the-barrel B movie is!! I myself am a huge fan of B horror films and even I HATED this lame movie.

The plot seems to be this, a mad doctor living in the swamp tries to create a monster with his human guests. As though that wasn't a hokey enough storyline, the production values of the film are as flat as a pancake. I've seen student films of much better quality. The swamp creature of the title is beyond goofy-looking and is featured for only a few moments in the climax of the film!! Did I mention the film was dubbed something terrible? It is. One would do better to mute the movie and make-up you're own dialog, it would certainly be more entertaining!

Oh yes, and in case you want to know just what the CURSE of the Swamp Creature is, it's this movie. That's all. Augh!

BOMB out of ****

Although Dr. Simon Trent, in the 1966 shlock classic "Curse of the Swamp Creature," is a completely obnoxious, homicidal, bullying madman, you've got to at least give him credit for one thing: He keeps his pet alligators well fed! Every time one of his experiments on evolution reversal or possibly the creation of an artificially gilled fishman (I'm not quite clear on this point) goes awry--which is pretty darn often, actually--his human test subject gets tossed into his front-yard gator pool. A production of American International Television (was this thing actually a TV movie?!?!), this lame little cheapie is a real challenge to sit through. No wonder star John Agar, here a geologist looking for oil near Trent's bayou retreat, seems to be having difficulty keeping his eyes open. Cult actress Francine York is on hand, too, playing Trent's captive wife, and her many charms are mostly wasted here. The film is only 80 minutes long, and yet still feels padded with endless shots of voodoo dancers, alligators, and swamp cruising. Throw in a singularly lame-looking monster who only appears in the picture's final five minutes, the lamest quicksand scene ever committed to film, remarkably poor dialogue, egregious day-for-night shots, incessantly annoying voodoo drumming, and completely uninspired direction by Larry Buchanan and you've got the makings of a real swamp mess indeed. My beloved "Psychotronic Encyclopedia" says that this movie is "an all-time favorite of American insomniacs," and I think I now understand why. This snoozer should put anyone to sleep!

What kind of mess do you get when you mix a mad scientist, his dim-witted but beautiful wife, angry local "swamp people" doing a voodoo dance, endless drumming almost throughout the film (the "taka-ta-taka, taka-ta-taka, taka-ta-taka" will drive you nuts), a geologist and some scheming locals, and of course a green bug-eyed monster? Why you wind up with Curse of the Swamp People, that's what! A geologist looking for oil in the swamps somewhere (Louisiana?) joins up with some locals intent on weaseling their way into a cut of the oil profits. They arrange for a guide to take them deep into the swamp where a mad scientist lives in a large house with a beautifully manicured lawn(!?). The mad scientist, Dr. Trent, is creating creatures by making some kind of alligator/fish-men.Unfortunately for him, most of his experiments have ended up in failure, but no problem - he disposes of them in his swimming pool full of hungry alligators.

Dr. Trent is close to perfecting his methods when he is unexpectedly visited by the geologist et al. At the same time the locals get fed up with him picking off their neighbors for his experiments, and they resolve to use voodoo and 24-hour drum beats to get their revenge.

As is typical for these low-budget creature-feature films of the 50s and 60s, you don't see the creature itself until almost the end of the movie, and it is completely laughable - it looks sort of like a less bulky version of Shrek, with bulging slit eyes.

As bad as the film is, I found myself entertained. It's many gaffs are easy and frequently spotted, such as the electric meter on the side of the doctor's house (if he lives so far back in the boonies, then how is it that he is 'on the grid', and why doesn't the meter reader wind up as a part of his monster experiments?). I found it kind of fun to watch, so I felt generous and gave it a 3.

CURSE was an education. Prior to seeing this film in the middle of the night, I had never seen a movie so inept, so awful that I could not watch it. As I recall, the only reason I kept watching the thing was the forlorn hope that at some point the movie might redeem itself. Nope. Acting? Everyone pretty much gives the performance level of an initial readthrough at a summer stock company. Location photography? For a desolate swamp, this place is awfully suburban. The Swamp Creature? Hoo boy..... the mask looked like a football with a couple pingpong balls for eyes and a tiny little mouth with a couple of fangs sticking out. How the creature was suppose to breathe and eat, let alone attack anyone is beyond me. John Agar had to be at the nadir of his career when he did this one. If you're an Agar fan, avoid this one. If you do see it and you want to remain an Agar fan, convince yourself it was Agar's doppelganger Arthur Franz who made the flick instead.

I have one question regarding this movie...how much Jesus juice had John Agar consumed before agreeing to appear in this dreadful movie? This has to be the worst movie ever made, even worse than Ed Wood's classic bomb, "Plan Nine from Outer Space". At least with "Plan Nine" you can laugh while watching it. I kept waiting to laugh at how bad this monstrosity was, but it was so boring I couldn't. The acting is atrocious, the plot makes no sense, and the monster is laughable. Some movies are so bad they are great, but this movie isn't one of them. John Agar looks aged and bloated in this movie, and at times seems downright embarrassed. I was embarrassed for him! Even John Agar fans will have a hard time sitting through this one.