Strangler of the Swamp

Strangler of the Swamp was made by low budget studio PRC and is certainly one of their best movies I've seen.

A man who was hanged for a murder he didn't commit returns as a ghost for revenge on the people who accused him. He uses a rope to strangle his victims and after several deaths, including the old man who operates the ferry across the swamp, he disappears. The old man's granddaughter takes over the ferry herself and also falls in love with one of the local men and they decide to get married.

This movie has plenty of foggy atmospheres, which makes it very creepy too.

The cast includes Rosemary La Planche, Blake Edwards and Charles Middleton (Flash Gordon) as the Strangler.

Strangler of the Swamp is a must for old horror fans like myself. Excellent.

Rating: 3 and a half stars out of 5.

Frank Wisbar is one of the more overlooked directors who came to Hollywood from Nazi Germany. He worked at the Poverty Row studio PRC and went back to Germany after the war. At PRC he made such curiosities as DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER and this little item, which actually remakes his own 1936 German film.

It's confined almost entirely to a foggy swamp (with some indoor scenes). The theatrical, atmospheric first act includes a striking scene of three old women standing like statues on the ferry, intoning their dire warnings as it goes back and forth, guided by the ferryman who is responsible for dooming the village. Wisbar evokes Greek mythology (Charon, who ferries people across the Styx; the Three Fates). The camera pans back and forth with the ferry of old people, underlining the stagnation, the fact that no one is going anywhere.

When the young heroine comes into the picture, she seems a breath of fresh air. But with her independent attitude in assuming the job of ferryman (inherited from her dad), she doesn't seem to realize that she too is going nowhere and may be doomed. Another breath of fresh air is the fact that her heroic young fiancee (Blake Edwards) can do nothing to rescue her, but on the contrary she must save him and the rest of the village from "the sins of the fathers." When you place this fable in its original context of Weimar cinema (its preoccupation with sins of authority figures and the previous generation) and the new threat of Hitler, you can see where Wisbar is coming from.

Nice simple movie. Great atmosphere and good acting. Reminds me somewhat of the old Universal studios monster movies. This movie is by PRC Pictures in 1946. When I first watched it I thought it was made earlier. It almost looked like a movie from the 30s. Looks like this movie had a much cheaper budget than contemporary horror movies but they did well with what they had. It has a combination of horror, mystery and a love story all rolled up in one. It has a great atmosphere about it and is really quite enjoyable. It's a fairly short movie of 58 minutes and keeps your attention throughout. I gave it a 6 out of 10 rating. Well worth seeing, keeping in mind that it is a older movie from 1946.

Many others here have commented well on this little movie, and I don't have much to add that hasn't already been said. It's very foggy, it's very atmospheric, and it's extremely dated. I suppose that's why I liked it so much.

The story takes place in a village that is secluded by marshes, and I became fascinated by the location more than anything else. It seemed to be mostly fantasy, but could there really have been a place like this in real life? The characters live in relatively nice houses and seem to even have electricity, yet at one point a family is seen leaving town in a covered horse-drawn wagon. The heroine is a woman who is intent on taking over her deceased grandfather's role as a ferryman, although when she arrives at this town she does not even know the old man is dead, leading me to believe they don't have phones. The ferry itself is a diminutive boat pulled back and forth by a rope fixed over the swamp. Where are these people going? What's on the other side of the swamp? How were the houses built in this swamp if the only access is by a small boat? Is the village located on an island?

There is also a perpetual fog that permeates the film, and this is probably one of the coolest elements of the movie. Even during the day the fog is present, and we see the new female ferryboat operator reclining in some grass while she waits for the next fare, billows of fog drifting over her. I found myself asking a lot of questions, like...Is the swamp not infested with mosquitos? Is the grass dry enough to relax on? What is the weather like in this swampy area anyway that would make it so darn foggy all the time?

The movie has a charmingly stagy look, the swamp set is pretty wonderful and the idea of an entire community existing under these isolated conditions is a great idea. The ghost is actually pretty spooky too, and real for a change (instead of being exposed as a fake at the end). I liked how obscure the film apparently is, although now it's available on DVD, which is where I saw it. I recommend this for all fans of low-budget black & white spooky movies.

An innocent man had vowed revenge on the lynch mob who strung him up and two generations of men have been dying along the bayou in mysterious ways ever since. The latest is the village ferryman whose granddaughter takes over his scow and falls for a young man whose father was also involved in the tragedy. Legend has it that the curse can be lifted if a descendant offers their life to the spectre and when it comes for the girl's beau, well...

German director Frank Wisbar re-worked his Reich film FAHRMANN MARIA for PRC and, like fellow émigré Edgar G. Ulmer, he knew how to make an atmospheric film on a shoestring budget. Set almost entirely in a fog- enshrouded swamp of gnarled trees and murky waters, the tale visually resembles it's predecessor but the theme has changed from a "love and death" fable to revenge from beyond the grave. In the original, Death itself had come to take Maria's lover but in the re-make, it's a vengeful ghost. Even so, both gals bargain for the life of their man.

B-movie bad guy Charles Middleton ("Ming The Merciless") was the vengeful cadaver in the mist and Maria was played by "Miss America 1941" Rosemary La Planche. Although Maria was the real hero, future producer/director Blake Edwards, of all people, played "the hero" and he wasn't a bad-looking guy. As far as Poverty Row chills go, STRANGLER is a cut above the rest thanks to an imaginative director.