Swamp Thing
Based on a DC Comics character, Swamp Thing (1982), directed by Wes Craven, uses the science experiment gone wrong idea to propel its story. Adrienne Barbeau, impressive not only physically but also performance-wise, plays replacement scientist Alice Cable, one of several curiously named people in this entertaining creature feature shot in a South Carolina cypress swamp.
Ray Wise (Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks) is Dr. Alec Holland, a plant enthusiast researching the effects of a serum resembling flat Mountain Dew. He works with his sister in a sealed laboratory located in a small ghost town flooded long ago. With the confidence of a practiced ladies' man, Alec Holland flirts with Alice Cable but to no avail. She's a bit grossed out by the swamp, the bugs, the heat, the calf-deep water hiding God knows what. Alec Holland, by contrast, rhapsodizes about the same environment. His poetic statements lead her, later on after he's transformed into Swamp Thing, to recognize the same sentiments coming from the vegetable mouth of her savior, the film's eponymous character.
He gets that way after chief villain Arcane (Louis Jourdan, the smarmy cheater at backgammon in Octopussy), along with his henchmen, invades and wrecks the lab and surrounding buildings in search of the serum but most importantly the means to make more of it: Dr. Holland's notes kept in seven notebooks. Alice Cable holds on to the seventh notebook, an object becoming to Arcane the Holy Grail in his quest to achieve transcendence of the human form.
The green serum, it turns out, transforms the person who ingests it into "who they essentially are." Forced to drink the serum, Dr. Holland turns into a large green man (Dick Durock), still sounding like
Ray Wise. The film never apologizes for presenting Swamp Thing as a big dude in a green suit. There's nothing remarkable, special effects-wise, in the way he looks--a green guy played by a professional stunt man, covered in knobby growths, lacking a penis and testicles, unless those are retracted into his abdomen.
His sexlessness has a thematic parallel with his Christlike ability to heal and even resurrect the dead, as he does with an African American boy, Jude (Reggie Batts). Jude encounters Alice Cable while she runs for her life from Arcane's henchmen. Drinking a Coke and working a boring shift at a gas station, Jude becomes Alice's much needed helper, but himself runs afoul of the shits chasing her. The former Dr. Holland is not a killer. When he subdues the henchmen he usually just throws them into the water or upends their boats. He's caught eventually, tied to a tilted cross in Arcane's dungeon.
Arcane at a dinner party, having recovered the seventh notebook, tests the serum on one of his henchmen, who becomes what he essentially is: a fucking idiot transformed painfully into a three foot tall man. Wes Craven in this scene resorts to a method used in the Spencer Tracy version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when Tracy, after ingesting his transforming potion, drops to the floor out of sight then emerges as the hairy alter ego of respectable Doctor Jekyll. In Craven's film, this simple device is laughable, a nudge in the direction of the ridiculous as the former big man jumps up to everyone's shock, turned into a pale pissed-off midget.
Arcane, having witnessed two violent transformations by this time, still wants to drink the formula and become a super-being. His arrogance leads to his turning into a bear-like reddish-furred monster with a face somewhat like a mole and big alarmed-looking eyes. All aggression, he grabs a long sword and goes after Swamp Thing and Alice Cable, the two who thwarted him, delaying his own "elevation" to a higher level of life. Swamp Thing, however, escapes into the the cypress swamp with Alice, helped by the little man betrayed by Arcane.
Arcane and Swamp Thing fight it out. Swamp Thing finally kills his opponent, making an exception in this case to taking life. Tan-colored blood flows from the former Arcane's chest, the weird liquid resembling congealing gravy--a gross but interesting image.
Alice, who received a sword thrust to her chest, is revived by Swamp Thing, who then wanders off into his domain, his Heaven. Reunited with Jude, Alice looks on in wonder at their savior. The film ends on a freeze frame of the green man looking back at his former would-be love. Alice, no doubt, will take a shower as soon as she can.
The film glows with the fun of a comic book, something lacking in too many contemporary comic book-based movies of the last two decades. It's as if the darkness of the post-9/11 period infected some Marvel and DC films, giving them a sense of despair not present in Swamp Thing. Although dark and violent undercurrents exist in this film--Arcane's evil designs, his contempt for life--Wes Craven's overall treatment reveals a desire on his part to have fun and tell a good story well, with an interesting and picturesque setting, good characters (even the henchmen), and humorous moments. One of the best characters, the teenager Jude, is enjoyable in every scene he's in. He and Adrienne Barbeau have excellent rapport. Reggie Batts never acted in any more films; a pity, since he's great in this movie. As I watched, I kept wondering who he is, thinking he may have grown up to be someone well-known.
Vic Neptune
Based on a DC Comics character, Swamp Thing (1982), directed by Wes Craven, uses the science experiment gone wrong idea to propel its story. Adrienne Barbeau, impressive not only physically but also performance-wise, plays replacement scientist Alice Cable, one of several curiously named people in this entertaining creature feature shot in a South Carolina cypress swamp.
Ray Wise (Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks) is Dr. Alec Holland, a plant enthusiast researching the effects of a serum resembling flat Mountain Dew. He works with his sister in a sealed laboratory located in a small ghost town flooded long ago. With the confidence of a practiced ladies' man, Alec Holland flirts with Alice Cable but to no avail. She's a bit grossed out by the swamp, the bugs, the heat, the calf-deep water hiding God knows what. Alec Holland, by contrast, rhapsodizes about the same environment. His poetic statements lead her, later on after he's transformed into Swamp Thing, to recognize the same sentiments coming from the vegetable mouth of her savior, the film's eponymous character.
He gets that way after chief villain Arcane (Louis Jourdan, the smarmy cheater at backgammon in Octopussy), along with his henchmen, invades and wrecks the lab and surrounding buildings in search of the serum but most importantly the means to make more of it: Dr. Holland's notes kept in seven notebooks. Alice Cable holds on to the seventh notebook, an object becoming to Arcane the Holy Grail in his quest to achieve transcendence of the human form.
The green serum, it turns out, transforms the person who ingests it into "who they essentially are." Forced to drink the serum, Dr. Holland turns into a large green man (Dick Durock), still sounding like
Ray Wise. The film never apologizes for presenting Swamp Thing as a big dude in a green suit. There's nothing remarkable, special effects-wise, in the way he looks--a green guy played by a professional stunt man, covered in knobby growths, lacking a penis and testicles, unless those are retracted into his abdomen.
His sexlessness has a thematic parallel with his Christlike ability to heal and even resurrect the dead, as he does with an African American boy, Jude (Reggie Batts). Jude encounters Alice Cable while she runs for her life from Arcane's henchmen. Drinking a Coke and working a boring shift at a gas station, Jude becomes Alice's much needed helper, but himself runs afoul of the shits chasing her. The former Dr. Holland is not a killer. When he subdues the henchmen he usually just throws them into the water or upends their boats. He's caught eventually, tied to a tilted cross in Arcane's dungeon.
Arcane at a dinner party, having recovered the seventh notebook, tests the serum on one of his henchmen, who becomes what he essentially is: a fucking idiot transformed painfully into a three foot tall man. Wes Craven in this scene resorts to a method used in the Spencer Tracy version of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde when Tracy, after ingesting his transforming potion, drops to the floor out of sight then emerges as the hairy alter ego of respectable Doctor Jekyll. In Craven's film, this simple device is laughable, a nudge in the direction of the ridiculous as the former big man jumps up to everyone's shock, turned into a pale pissed-off midget.
Arcane, having witnessed two violent transformations by this time, still wants to drink the formula and become a super-being. His arrogance leads to his turning into a bear-like reddish-furred monster with a face somewhat like a mole and big alarmed-looking eyes. All aggression, he grabs a long sword and goes after Swamp Thing and Alice Cable, the two who thwarted him, delaying his own "elevation" to a higher level of life. Swamp Thing, however, escapes into the the cypress swamp with Alice, helped by the little man betrayed by Arcane.
Arcane and Swamp Thing fight it out. Swamp Thing finally kills his opponent, making an exception in this case to taking life. Tan-colored blood flows from the former Arcane's chest, the weird liquid resembling congealing gravy--a gross but interesting image.
Alice, who received a sword thrust to her chest, is revived by Swamp Thing, who then wanders off into his domain, his Heaven. Reunited with Jude, Alice looks on in wonder at their savior. The film ends on a freeze frame of the green man looking back at his former would-be love. Alice, no doubt, will take a shower as soon as she can.
The film glows with the fun of a comic book, something lacking in too many contemporary comic book-based movies of the last two decades. It's as if the darkness of the post-9/11 period infected some Marvel and DC films, giving them a sense of despair not present in Swamp Thing. Although dark and violent undercurrents exist in this film--Arcane's evil designs, his contempt for life--Wes Craven's overall treatment reveals a desire on his part to have fun and tell a good story well, with an interesting and picturesque setting, good characters (even the henchmen), and humorous moments. One of the best characters, the teenager Jude, is enjoyable in every scene he's in. He and Adrienne Barbeau have excellent rapport. Reggie Batts never acted in any more films; a pity, since he's great in this movie. As I watched, I kept wondering who he is, thinking he may have grown up to be someone well-known.
Vic Neptune
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