Curse of the Swamp Creature

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.

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.

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.

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.

One of Larry Buchanan's notorious "Azalea" films for TV, this atrociously shot monster movie is a third-rate retread of VOODOO WOMAN, itself a second-rate quickie which wasn't exactly begging for resurrection. It stars John Agar( which usually means John Carradine was sick with the flu) as a swamp-dwelling scientist conducting the usual quack experiments which require fresh corpses. When a group of small-time criminals arrive in this remote little neck of the bayou, they quickly find themselves in quite a bind with the crazed doctor. Meanwhile, the swamp-rat locals beat ceaselessly on their bongos o' voodoo with dazzling inexpertise.

Our mad doctor's dabbling yields a preposterous looking monster(imagine a hard-luck distant cousin of THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON), and it doesn't even become active until the last five minutes of this plodding, flavorless insult to cinema. Only the most sworn procurers of old-school monster-schlock need apply.

2.5/10. Make-a-doodie-yucky-peeeee-yeeeuw.