Curse of the Swamp Creature (1968)

CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE is a dreadful creature feature from monster movie maker Larry Buchanan, a man with seemingly little talent for cinema, unlike say somebody like Don Dohler. It comes as no surprise to me that this pitiful attempt at a film didn't even make it to cinemas, instead being released straight to television by AIP.The story is your usual one about a mad scientist with his own theories of evolution doing experiments on people and thus accidentally creating the titular creature. There's a lot of hanging around at a swimming pool and a stock hero role for an ageing John Agar, no stranger to B-movie fare. The titular creation doesn't appear until the last five minutes and until that point it's endless boredom and lousy production values, with many scenes too dark to make out what's going on - not that anything is going on, other than the director treading water until the running time is complete.

A petroleum engineer, Mr. West, registers at a motel in the swamp. He's there to explore for oil, and he's to meet his partner, Mr. Rogers (Agar), the next day. The handful of people running the motel treat the possibility of finding oil the way the cowboys in the old Westerns treated finding gold. They kill Mr. West and the leading lady, Simmons in capri pants and beehive hair do, decides to pose as Mr. West's wife and accompany Rogers on his trek.This is only twenty minutes into the movie and already I felt a mysterious numbness creeping up my spine. How -- this is what I foolishly wondered -- how can Simmons pose as Mr. West's wife? For all anyone knows, Rogers and West have been close friends for years. How is it plausible that a total stranger could claim to know all about a man she'd only met hours before and exchanged a dozen words with? It was "foolish" to ask because if you let yourself get hung up on a question of such MINOR significance, you'll be stunned into unconsciousness as the rest of the film unfolds.It's not worth going on about. The plot was written by two plods who were on some experimental psychedelic drug. The acting is what you'd expect from the cast of a high school play in East Orange. Uncertain, Texas -- yes, that's the location's real name -- gives a good impression of swampiness. It's an impressive ecosystem. The plot depicts it as an African jungle. A man hacks his way through the bush with a machete while Agar strolls casually behind, holding his sports jacket flung over his shoulder, a tourist on vacation. Jungle drums beat messages back and forth. (No kidding.) Agar looks fine, by the way, considering the stresses that time and self abuse must have imposed on his appearance.I couldn't get through it. I was in the thrall of that numbness and was barely able to shut this monstrosity off. To sum it up, if someone gave you a camera, small crew, a handful of people claiming to be actors, and sent you to Uncertain, Texas, with the sole instruction: "Make a movie about sinister goings-on in this swamp," you would do at least as good a job.I'm giving this two stars instead of one, but only because it could be worse. It could be a Nazi or Stalinist propaganda film.

The trouble with Curse of the Swamp Creature is that it is based on the presumption that you've seen it, and you're dumb enough to have wasted 80 minutes of your life to watch this junk.I did and I am! So many times you can pick up a small gem from the dollar store's DVD rack; I saw The Great St. Louis Bank Robbery once and wondered how I got so lucky. I have felt the same way with The House on Haunted Hill, How Awful about Allen, and Katherine. There are some good flicks out there that have been lost to the years or were just so low-budget that nobody cared about them then or don't know about them now.Curse of the Swamp Creature is not a gem but a wad of swamp sludge, rotting and stinking up your movie rack. My suggestion--if you already bought it--is to donate it to your public library.The librarian may just curse you!

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 ****