Swamp Thing

Another notch in the B-Grade horror movie belt. This is Wes Craven's third major motion picture in his career (I consider Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes to be the first two - there are some others on his resume, but they seem extremely obscure). While Swamp Thing is technically a comic book/superhero film, I think this still bares some resemblance to your standard horror flick. Now, I know practically know nothing about the Swamp Thing comic books, so cannot not attest to how close this adaptation is to the canon storyline, but this is how things breakdown in the film.

In the swamps of Louisiana, Dr. Alec Holland is working at a secret government laboratory studying the plants and wildlife of the area. With some evidence of violent extremists sabotaging the scientific-monitoring equipments scattered throughout the marshes, FBI agent Alice Cable arrives to provide some tactical support. Before you know it, the extremists break into the laboratory compound led by one of the FBI agents in disguise and root through all of the Holland's experiments to learn what he has been working on - a new plant/animal-hybrid organism that can survive in the most inhospitable environments known to man. During a fight, Holland is covered with this strange new substance, which explodes, covering him in flames. He runs through the area (actually a fairly cool scene) and dives into the swamp where he presumably dies.

As you can guess, Holland is not dead. Instead the organism makes him half-man, half-plant - Swamp Thing. 

The rest of the movie is extremely formulaic and uninteresting. Alice has escaped the extremists and made away with Holland's notebook containing the priceless information on his research. Our villain, Dr. Anton Arcane, is forced into trying to chase her down. Everytime his goons get close, Swamp Thing appears and stops him with his superhuman strength and the ability to regenerate his limbs if wounded. 

The story culminates with Arcane finally capturing Alice and Swamp Thing, imprisoning them both in his medieval-looking dungeon beneath his giant, elegant mansion situated in the middle of fucking hicks-ville USA. Sort of like Superman, when Swamp Thing is concealed from the Sun's rays he weakens. Trapped in the basement, his powers shrink. And with Arcane finally in possession of Holland's notebook is able to recreate the serum that made Holland into Swamp Thing. Once ingested, Arcane takes on quite a different look...

WTF?!

Swamp Thing makes note of what you turn into after taking the serum resembles something of your inner-self - I wasn't really paying much attention at this point. Regardless, I think Arcane turns into a large version of some swamp-rat that Holland points out early in the film. He grabs a sword and chases after Swamp Thing and Alice (as they've just escaped Arcane's Dungeon) and have a final battle out in the swamps. Of course Arcane is slain, Swamp Thing wins, and Alice is finally saves. The last scene is Swamp Thing returning to the marshes telling Alice to head back to D.C. to "tell their story." It's a bullshit ending to a bullshit movie.

I understand that this is a cult film that is great to poke fun of, but when viewed alone on a Thursday evening it can get pretty boring. Reading up on the film's background, apparently this was Wes Craven's attempt to show Hollywood that he's ready to take on some larger projects. There are stunts, action, some more serious acting (I suppose). Frankly, I still enjoy his other two previous movies more than this, but it's still a little time before he makes A Nightmare on Elm Street and redefines the horror movie genre - then doing it again with Scream. 

In case I haven't made it clear yet, I would avoid this. I don't image anyone was chomping at the bit to see it - or even knew it existed - but it's low-budget and campy acting can make it fairly painful to watch... and not in a good-MST3000 way. 

Regardless, there's been some buzz for the past few years regarding a remake (or reboot?) to this franchise to be led by The Matrix Trilogy producer Joel Silver. Still don't know what's going on with it, but seeing as how comic book films are continuously on the rise, I imagine it won't be long till with see our green friend back on the big screen.