SWAMP THING
1982 OUT 25 MARCH Dual Format EXTRAS Commentary, Featurettes, Poster, Booklet
Craven does DC Comics! Weedy or evergreen?
Long before Aquaman bobbed to the top of the box office, another watery DC icon swam into cinemas. Albeit not in Britain – Swamp Thing went straight to VHS on these shores, which probably didn’t do its cult standing any harm. It’s no comic-book classic, though a case could be made for it being a camp one.
“It’s not my strongest directing,” says Wes Craven on the chat track (from 2013), going on to describe the FX as “lacking”. He’s right: the plant-based behemoth – a chemically mutated bioengineer – looks less a creature from the black lagoon, more a creature from the back room of a fancy-dress shop.
Still, Craven does tap some of the Thing’s tragic essence. And while the source material’s gothic overtones get lost amid the slow-mo speedboat smashes, the director maintains some continuity with his early work, not least by casting The Last House On The Left’s
David Hess as the hateful head of a squad out to squash Swampy. But top baddie honours go to Louis Jourdan as the urbane Arcane, who nabs the best-worst lines: “A strong adversary is like a beautiful woman… I’ve never been able to resist either.”
Surviving cast members, notably heroine Adrienne Barbeau, are awol from the extras, but there’s an appraisal from critic Kim Newman, plus production designer Robb Wilson King waxes nostalgic about “the longest run of a [stunt]man on fire ever put on film”. Matthew Leyland