Government stooge Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) is sent out to the swamps of North Carolina to look in on the research of Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) to see how his crazy formula is going. Holland is supposed to be making something that glows green like the reanimation agent that Dr. Herbert West developed a few years later. One night, an evil rich guy named Arcane shows up with his private army to steal the formula and everything goes to hell.

Holland is doused with his own formula, set on fire, and runs out into the swamp. Instead of turning into The Incredible Hulk, he turns into the incredibly hulking Swamp Thing! Meanwhile, Cable is trying to save Holland’s last notebook -it’s a paper thing that people used to write on- and avoid getting murdered by Arcane’s right hand men, Ferret (David Hess) and Bruno (Nicholas Worth). Swamp Thing comes to the rescue and after 91 minutes, the movie is over.

I’m not sure who was less suited for this project, director Wes Craven or composer Harry Manfredini. Both of them bring the wrong (but not necessarily bad) energy to Swamp Thing (1982). This is definitely an action movie first, a science fiction movie second, and a horror movie like fifth or sixth after I don’t know what. The stunt choreography is cool, the cast is great, and there’s a lot of goofy fun to be had. Manfredini’s score has a made-for-TV feel that does the film no favors.

Like most comic book fans, I wish this film had been made after Alan Moore’s famous run on the Saga of Swamp Thing title. None of the strangeness and the philosophical nature of his stuff are anywhere near this movie. But that’s okay if you are looking for something comic book-y, because this one has some stylistic flourishes to it. There are no Creepshow (1982) levels of loopy craziness going on or anything, but it’s nice to see they at least tried with this one.

One thing that drives me nuts is how colorful the origin story of Swamp Thing is at the beginning of the movie. The eyepopping backlit green smoke and the literal bodily fireworks that Holland’s formula causes are kind of the last visually arresting stuff that happens in the movie. I don’t need wall to wall neon colors or anything, but the rest of the movie is mostly just the swamps of North Carolina in broad daylight. And no, the uncut version’s long, lingering, and totally gratuitous shots of Adrienne’s huge pair of Barbeaus does NOT count as cool cinematography.

Nostalgia has been very kind to Swamp Thing over the years. I can absolutely enjoy this film now, but my memories of it were perhaps overly fond compared to what my old brain thinks of it now. It’s certainly action-packed and features monsters, but it is sorely lacking in both the atmosphere and the body horror that an adaptation of Swamp Thing deserves. Characters talking about a swamp being haunted does not automatically make that swamp haunted. And there isn’t a single shot of Dr. Hammond transforming into the creature, which I find very amusing considering all the goopy weirdness that Freddy Krueger would revel in Craven’s biggest success just two years later. 

I don’t often break out the term “flawless” in my reviews in regards to picture quality or anything else really. But this release of Swamp Thing looks and sounds pretty damn close to flawless. I’ve heard that the picture quality on this release is an improvement on the Shout! Factory disc, but I don’t have them both to compare. Speaking of Shout! Factory, nearly all of the extras for that disc have been carried over here. Two are from the 88 Films release as well. Highlights include interviews with the always engaging Barbeau, Reggie Batts, who played Jude, the kid that gets mixed up in all this monstrous and swampy business, and comic book writer, Len Wein, who created Swamp Thing. There are also two commentary tracks, one featuring Wes Craven.