Curse of the Swamp Creature

So these people are going thru the jungle/bayou looking for the mad scientist's house, going thru thick leaves they have to cut back, for hours or days...then they come to the mad scientist's house and it has a manicured lawn, a sidewalk leading up to the front door, trimmed bushes, a ranch house like it was from suburbia! Evidently when shooting or editing they had no stock shots of houses so they went next door to some real estate office and snagged one to use.

This is an example of how hilarious this film is - there's more stuff like this in there.

The clothes, the poor make-up and masks...I wonder if when they made these type of "horror films" they knew they would be hilarious.

Director Larry Buchanan's Curse of the Swamp Creature is a worthy companion to the parade of "swamp-stomping mad scientist trying to shake off meddlesome interloper" films which populate one of horror's tiniest genres. It's not hard to make waves in such a small pond, and Curse of the Swamp Creature certainly doesn't disappoint devoted horror fans, many of whom follow Larry Buchanan as a kind of successor to Schlock horror's undisputed Grand Champion, Ed Wood.

The Curse of the Swamp Creature is that he lives at all. In the murkiest reaches of Louisiana's bayou a reclusive scientist experiments with the genetic map and creates a sort of man-phibian out of one of his apprentices. Meanwhile a cadre of well-meaning interlopers and less-well-meaning con-artists threatens the Doctor's harmonious freak-making activities and themselves become fodder for future human-animal hybrids. If they don't stop him, no one will be safe from "The Curse of the Swamp Creature."

All of the elements of good "bad" cinema are here in spades. Dopey acting, campy dialog, silly monsters, and interior sets that look like someone's Grandma's house got invaded over the weekend and turned into an evil laboratory brimming with everything one would need to do radical genetic engineering. Well, maybe not everything. But he does have an aquarium and some test tubes.

Heading a search for oil, a geologist(John Agar)finds adventure in the form of a mad doctor(Jeff Alexander)who seeks to create a reptile man. Also in the cast are Francine York, Bill Thurman and Shirley McLine. Talk about low budget...some kid gave up his lunch money to make this one. And when you finally get to see a "creature", you bust a gut laughing. Why did they waste color film on this? To be exact, being shot in black & white would've been an asset. This is a must to avoid. Sorry.

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!

People say that "Plan 9 From Outer Space" is the worst film ever? I beg to differ. Larry Buchanan's mad scientist flick makes Plan 9 look like Citizen Kane! I think this film definitely gives Plan 9 a run for its money.

Just take a look at what you're getting here -- among other things, you have a mad scientist in the Louisiana swamp using his co-workers as guinea pigs for his evolution experiments, a deaf-mute girl, American blacks doing an African "curse the dr." dance while burning an effigy, a guy who gets cut up with a log cutter (off-screen), ping pong ball-eyed monsters, alligators in a swimming pool, and John Agar! Be sure and watch for the guy who answers and carries on a conversation on a telephone that never rings -- they apparently forgot to put the sound effect in during post-production (trust me -- it won't be the only time). The swanky '60s costumes and music are absurd, and the performances have to be seen to be believed. Films don't often get worse than this one.

I love this movie. It is so ridiculously bad that it can actually pull me out of a grumpy mood. If you like Ed Wood or Ray Dennis Steckler or Ted Mikels, you'll love this. If you like quality motion pictures with plots that make sense, realistic special effects, and Oscar-caliber acting, well...I warned you.