SWAMP CREATURE MOVIE
The only recognisable name present is B movie regular and former Mr Shirley Temple John Agar who, for all his headline status, never gets up to much.
SWAMP CREATURE PLUS
On the plus side, the film picks up once it arrives at the mad scientist’s house where Jeff Alexander plays to the gallery with entertainingly theatrical effect while delivering most of the role behind a pair of sunglasses. (Given that there is no music credit, you suspect that this is a library score that was rehashed from elsewhere). None of it is terribly interesting and things are further killed by what is possible one of the dreariest film scores ever recorded. Mad scientist Jeff Alexander (l) and the swamp creature (Bill Thurman) (r)Īs usual, Larry Buchanan does not make a very good film. The oddity is that, despite being located on US soil, Curse of the Swamp Creature still retains the notion of restless natives beating the drums and practicing voodoo rituals in the jungle, which does seem just a little eyebrow-raisingly odd when you try to think of it applying to African-Americans in the backwater bayous of Texas.
The difference between the two is that Curse of the Swamp Creature is able to spend more of its time on the adventure aspect of the film – even if this never consists of much more than the cast passing through the swamps by boat and setting up camp. By contrast, Buchanan actually goes on location into the bayous of backwaters Texas to shoot. Voodoo Woman was set in an unspecified jungle territory represented by cheap backlot photography and stock footage. The nature of the monster the scientist is experimenting on is changed from a mind-controlled voodoo monster to some nonsense about creating human-crocodile hybrids and returning people to their evolutionary beginnings, while the purpose of the expedition had been changed from a treasure hunt to a search for oil. Larry Buchanan embellishes the original far more so than he did with any of his other AIP remakes. In this case it is based on the film Voodoo Woman (1957), an entertainingly cheap potboiler that featured Marla English as a gold-digging strumpet heading into native jungle in search of treasure and coming across mad scientist Tom Conway who is trying to use voodoo to create a female monster. These consisted of The Eye Creatures (1965), which remakes Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957) In the Year 2889 (1966), which remakes Roger Corman’s Day the World Ended (1955) Zontar: The Thing from Venus (1966), which remakes Corman’s It Conquered the World (1956) and Creature of Destruction (1967), which remakes The She-Creature (1956).Ĭurse of the Swamp Creature was another of these AIP remakes.
SWAMP CREATURE SERIES
In the mid-1960s, Buchanan was commissioned by American International Pictures (AIP) to conduct a series of ultra-cheap remakes of their B movies from a decade earlier as a part of a package intended for television.
Buchanan made films such as The Naked Witch (1964), Mars Needs Women (1966), It’s Alive (1969), The Loch Ness Horror (1982) and Mistress of the Apes (1981). The films of Larry Buchanan (1923-2004) are usually considered right down there with those of Edward D.
He has been choosing his experimental subjects among the voodoo-worshipping African-American locals of the area but this has caused the natives to become restless. They arrive at the laboratory home of Dr Simon Trent who has been engaged in a series of experiments to revert humans to their crocodile ancestors.
The ruse is successful and the group set forth on the expedition into deep swamp territory. With West’s geologist Barry Rogers flying in in order to lead the way into the swamps tomorrow, they decide the only recourse is for Brenda to pretend to be West’s wife. However, West returns while Ritchie is rifling through his luggage, a scuffle ensues and West is killed. At the backwoods Fly N Fish hotel, Brenda Simmons and several of the hotel staff are determined to get the secrets of guest Driscoll West who has come seeking oil in the area.
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