Curse of the Swamp Creature (1966)
Nomination Year: 2009
SYNOPSIS: A remake of the 1957 film Voodoo Woman, this was made in the same year as (and with the same director and about half the cast of) Zontar the Thing from Venus. You can really see the evolution in director Larry Buchanan's style. Zontar was washed out, and this movie's colors are much brighter. So to make up for it, the acting was worse (the actor who played CotSW's main bad guy actually got worse from Zontar).
There are two groups of characters (the household of the mad scientist who is trying to create immortal beings to do his bidding, and the fortune hunters seeking surface signs of oil under the swamp). They don't meet until nearly an hour into the movie.
A good ten minutes is made up of the fortune hunters walking through thedeciduous forest swamp, taking boats through the open waterways swamp, and stock footage of alligators. Oh, was there stock footage of alligators! It was sort of like all the worst parts of Swamp Diamonds rolled into a neat ball of stock footage.
Everybody wore sunglasses. But not normal-sized sunglasses, no. Weirdly-enlarged sunglasses that were just one step down from novelty sunglasses. When the fortune hunters headed into the swamp, the Creole natives got sight of them, and spread the word by beating on African-style drums. There was a Snake Dance, too. And a character died in quicksand (set conveniently under about 30 inches of water) by thrashing around and "sinking" beneath the water's surface.
Certain scenes were set at night, but you could only tell by the context. There was no real attempt at day-for-night shooting. They didn't even care enough to fake it. Not even to have a character say "What a bright moon tonight." Of course, since this is the first script credit for actor Tony Huston (who went on to write The Sidehackers), maybe we shouldn't expect too much. We certainly don't get it.
When the Swamp Creature is finally created (about two minutes before the end of the film), the good guys coax her into killing the evil doctor. Then they promptly ignore her, leave her in the mad scientist's alligator-infested swimming pool greenhouse, head back to civilization, and fly off into the sunset together. Without another word about her, or even a second thought.
This movie is superior (or perhaps inferior) to Zontar in that three major characters survived this one ... even if one (Brenda) was technically transformed into a Swamp Creature.
There are two groups of characters (the household of the mad scientist who is trying to create immortal beings to do his bidding, and the fortune hunters seeking surface signs of oil under the swamp). They don't meet until nearly an hour into the movie.
A good ten minutes is made up of the fortune hunters walking through the
Everybody wore sunglasses. But not normal-sized sunglasses, no. Weirdly-enlarged sunglasses that were just one step down from novelty sunglasses. When the fortune hunters headed into the swamp, the Creole natives got sight of them, and spread the word by beating on African-style drums. There was a Snake Dance, too. And a character died in quicksand (set conveniently under about 30 inches of water) by thrashing around and "sinking" beneath the water's surface.
Certain scenes were set at night, but you could only tell by the context. There was no real attempt at day-for-night shooting. They didn't even care enough to fake it. Not even to have a character say "What a bright moon tonight." Of course, since this is the first script credit for actor Tony Huston (who went on to write The Sidehackers), maybe we shouldn't expect too much. We certainly don't get it.
When the Swamp Creature is finally created (about two minutes before the end of the film), the good guys coax her into killing the evil doctor. Then they promptly ignore her, leave her in the mad scientist's alligator-infested swimming pool greenhouse, head back to civilization, and fly off into the sunset together. Without another word about her, or even a second thought.
This movie is superior (or perhaps inferior) to Zontar in that three major characters survived this one ... even if one (Brenda) was technically transformed into a Swamp Creature.
Kevin Hogan
Larry Buchanan
John Agar
Tony Huston
