Curse of the Swamp Creature

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.

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.

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.

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.