The Curse of the Swamp Creature is a concept found in various mythologies and folklore around the world. It is often described as a monstrous creature, half-human and half-reptile, that haunts and terrorizes those who dare to venture into its territory. Legend has it that the creature was once a normal human being who was transformed into this hideous being as a result of a curse or some sort of dark magic. According to these tales, the curse of the swamp creature is said to be a punishment for a person's wrongdoing or hubris. It is believed that the creature is doomed to remain in the swamp, forever trapped between the human and animal world, seeking revenge on those who cross its path. Some stories even claim that the creature has the power to bring illness, misfortune, or death to anyone who encounters it.
Geologist Barry Rogers arrives in some fly-bitten middle of nowhere to meet a man named Driscoll West, with whom he plans to look for oil. Instead, he finds a woman claiming to be Mrs. West and a couple of her employees – she tells Rogers that her husband had something else come up, but that she’s fully capable of helping him with his prospecting. The party ventures into a swamp that looks like a perfect home for either the Giant Leeches or the Boggy Creek Creature, but find neither. Instead, they meet Dr. Simon Trent, a mad scientist who keeps his wife locked in a closet and stock alligator footage in his backyard pool. He’s planning to conquer the world with indestructible fish people, and he thinks Mrs. West is the perfect subject for his experiments!
West and a couple of her employees she tells Rogers that her husband had something else come up, but that she s fully capable of helping him with his prospecting. I have complained in the past that some of these movies seem to be put together by people who know that a film should have certain things in it, but don t understand how those components come together into a story.
Some stories even claim that the creature has the power to bring illness, misfortune, or death to anyone who encounters it. The curse of the swamp creature serves as a cautionary tale, warning people of the dangers of disrespecting nature or engaging in forbidden practices. It reminds us to be mindful of our actions and to avoid arrogance or disregard for the natural world.
The MST3K Project
Zontar, the Thing from Venus looks like it ought to be perfect fodder for this blog – it was, after all, directed by Larry Buchanan of Attack of the The Eye Creatures, and stars John Agar. I decided early on, however, that I would not use it because it was a remake of It Conquered the World, which MST3K already tackled. But fear not, MSTies, Zontar isn’t the only film these two bad movie titans made together! I give you Curse of the Swamp Creature, which disappointingly has only one the in the title.
Geologist Barry Rogers arrives in some fly-bitten middle of nowhere to meet a man named Driscoll West, with whom he plans to look for oil. Instead, he finds a woman claiming to be Mrs. West and a couple of her employees – she tells Rogers that her husband had something else come up, but that she’s fully capable of helping him with his prospecting. The party ventures into a swamp that looks like a perfect home for either the Giant Leeches or the Boggy Creek Creature, but find neither. Instead, they meet Dr. Simon Trent, a mad scientist who keeps his wife locked in a closet and stock alligator footage in his backyard pool. He’s planning to conquer the world with indestructible fish people, and he thinks Mrs. West is the perfect subject for his experiments!
Wait… this sounds weirdly familiar. Mad scientist with a captive wife making monsters, who eventually decides a female criminal is just what he needs? Is… is this a remake of Voodoo Woman? Why the hell would anybody remake Voodoo Woman?! Especially when Voodoo Woman was itself just a (*ahem*) ’re-imagining’ of The She-Creature, which Buchanan himself already re-made as Creature of Destruction! Not to mention that The She-Creature was just a cash-in on In Search of Bridey Murphy with a monster added to differentiate it from The Undead, and…
Hold on, I think I need a flow chart here. Gimme a minute.
The idea of this being a remake of Voodoo Woman actually makes sense of a couple of weird subplots that have no other reason to exist. I have complained in the past that some of these movies seem to be put together by people who know that a film should have certain things in it, but don’t understand how those components come together into a story. Curse of the Swamp Creature is a particularly illuminating example. Almost everything that was in Voodoo Woman is also in this movie, but in many places, Buchanan has failed to understand the role these ideas play in the plot.
In Voodoo Woman, Marylin and her cronies were pretending to be Ted’s contacts because they believed they were going to find the gold that supposedly belonged to the tribe, and her story culminates in learning that no such treasure exists. Her greed and violence are also what brings her to Dr. Gerhart’s attention as a possible subject, since he wants his creature to be capable of killing. In Curse of the Swamp Creature, ‘Mrs. West’ is likewise an imposter, who murdered Mr. West and dumped his body in the swamp so that Rogers would lead her to the oil. This has nothing to do with anything else in the story. To be an equivalent of the gold from Voodoo Woman, the oil would have to be something located near or belonging to Dr. Trent. Instead, it just falls out of the story, and it’s not anything Mrs. West says or does that makes the doctor choose her. She seems to be selected at random.
There’s also a thing in which one of the prospectors witnesses a ‘snake dance’ performed by the world’s most unenthusiastic voodoo cult, and follows the dancer home intending to rape her. She tricks him into drowning in quicksand and then we return to the main plot as if nothing happened. In Voodoo Woman, the attack on Zuranda was the first time the growing racial tensions in the film erupted into actual violence, when the local people decided they could no longer tolerate the presence of Dr. Gerhart. The equivalent scene in Curse of the Swamp Creature does nothing except pay off the quicksand people have been talking about for the entire movie, in an entirely unsatisfying way.
Curse of the Swamp Creature’s equivalent to the native village from Voodoo Woman is a population of poor black people living in small houses and trailers in the swamp. In Voodoo Woman Dr. Gerhart needed a relationship with the locals, because he was trying to incorporate their magic into his work. Dr. Trent, meanwhile, sees them only as a convenient victim pool. They try to place some kind of curse on him and maybe the ending plays out the way it does because of that, but then, maybe it doesn’t – we don’t see anything in the movie that suggests they have any real magical powers. The only reason the ceremony seems to be in the movie is to justify the attempted rape… and that was only in the movie because it was in Voodoo Woman, so the whole thing is useless. The constant ‘voodoo drumming’ throughout the film gets really obnoxious, too.
I guess I should at least give Curse of the Swamp Creature points for not trying to pretend it’s set in Africa. On the other hand, the humid swamp they’re shooting it looks a whole hell of a lot more like Africa than anything in The Leech Woman, so they probably could have gotten away with it. I don’t know about you guys but I sure can’t tell the difference between crocodiles and alligators.
At the end of Curse of the Swamp Creature you can kind of tell what they’re going for but they were so busy copying scenes from Voodoo Woman that they didn’t bother to set up any of the things that would have made it meaningful. Dr. Trent successfully transforms Mrs. West into a monster and, as her master, orders her to kill. Trent’s wife Pat, however, begs her not to listen to him. The two of them yell at her for a minute and then Mrs. West throws Trent into the alligator pool. She jumps in after him because I guess that’s better than living out her life as a swamp monster.
Several things would have been necessary to make this work. First of all, we would have needed to see one of Dr. Trent’s previous creations obey him and kill somebody. We saw one walk across the room when he told it to, but that’s not exactly the same thing… we would need a demonstration that Trent’s control is able to overrule the victim’s personality. Second, we would need to see some kind of bond form between Pat and Mrs. West, so that Pat would have a reason to believe the monster would listen to her. In fact, the two characters barely speak to each other. Finally, one of the things Pat calls out is, “look at yourself, you used to be beautiful!” If this were going to be a factor in Mrs. West’s suicide, we really ought to have seen some earlier evidence of vanity.
In sum total, the plot of this movie is an irreparable mess. Larry Buchanan and his collaborators had obviously seen Voodoo Woman but they didn’t understand any of the levels on which that movie worked – and compared to Curse of the Swamp Creature, it actually worked very well.
On top of that, Curse of the Swamp Creature is so hopelessly cheap that it’s alternately hilarious and depressing. It’s filmed it somebody’s suburban house, standing in for a secret laboratory deep in the swamp. The lab equipment in Trent’s basement appears to have been scrounged from half a dozen garage sales. And when I mentioned him having stock alligator footage in his pool… it’s literally a chlorinated swimming pool in a greenhouse-looking structure, intercut with stock footage of alligators doing their thing in a muddy pond. Trent stands on the diving board when tossing his failed experiments in for them to eat. I can’t tell if we’re supposed to pretend it’s something else, or if Trent is literally keeping gators in his backyard pool!
Now I guess it’s time to talk about John Agar. Fortunately, it won’t take long because he never does anything. I’m getting really fed up with movies whose designated heroes never do anything. I don’t remember exactly what, if anything, Touch Connors did in Voodoo Woman, but that was a movie in which the villains, Dr. Gerhart and Marylin, were interesting enough that you didn’t notice. In Curse of the Swamp Creature, John Agar is dull and Dr. Trent and Mrs. West are duller. He shows up wearing a pair of cat-eye sunglasses right out of Crow’s collection in Danger!! Death Ray, and spends the whole movie squinting at things.
If Curse of the Swamp Creature has anything to prove, I think it’s proving that no matter how bad something was, Larry Buchanan could always make it worse. Voodoo Woman was a crummy rehash of The She-Creature but managed to be worth watching by making some points about colonialism… even if those were still probably accidental. Curse of the Swamp Creature is a crummy rehash of a crummy rehash, stripping its source material for whatever coherence and meaning it might have originally possessed. God, imagine if Buchanan had tried to remake something that was already completely incoherent… like Blood Feast or Robot Monster. I shudder to think.
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The creature itself embodies the consequences of such behavior, showing us the horrific fate that awaits those who fail to heed this warning. While the curse of the swamp creature is primarily a fictional concept, it reflects humanity's fascination with the unknown and our desire to explain the unexplainable. It taps into our primal fears of the dark and mysterious, as well as our collective guilt and the potential consequences of our actions. In popular culture, the curse of the swamp creature has been depicted in various forms, such as movies, books, and television shows. These adaptations often portray the creature as a fearsome and formidable adversary, lurking in the murky depths of the swamp, ready to strike at any moment. Ultimately, the curse of the swamp creature serves as a reminder that we must respect and coexist with the natural world, or else face the wrath of its inhabitants. It is a cautionary tale that urges us to live in harmony with our environment and to acknowledge the forces beyond our understanding..
Reviews for "Seeking Salvation: The Plight of Those Afflicted by the Swamp Creature Curse"
1. John - 2/5 stars - "Curse of the swamp creature lacked any real substance or scares. The storyline was weak and predictable, and the acting was subpar at best. The dialogue felt forced and unnatural, making it difficult to become invested in the characters or their plight. The special effects were also extremely disappointing, looking cheap and poorly executed. Overall, I was highly disappointed with Curse of the swamp creature and wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a good horror movie."
2. Sarah - 1/5 stars - "I have to say, Curse of the swamp creature was one of the worst movies I have ever seen. The plot was incredibly thin and unoriginal, and the acting was cringe-worthy. The supposed scares were laughable, as the monster itself was poorly designed and lacked any genuine fear factor. It felt like a B-movie made on a shoestring budget, and not in a charming or endearing way. Save yourself the trouble and skip Curse of the swamp creature."
3. Emily - 2/5 stars - "I must admit, I had high hopes for Curse of the swamp creature based on the concept, but it turned out to be a major disappointment. The pacing was off, with long stretches of boredom punctuated by brief, unexciting monster sequences. The characters were flat and uninteresting, and the dialogue felt like clichéd horror movie lines we've all heard a thousand times before. I found myself counting down the minutes until it was over. Curse of the swamp creature had potential, but it fell flat in execution."