SWAMP THING (1981) Region B Blu-ray/DVD Combo
Director: Wes Craven
88 Films

Between Krug and Krueger, Wes Craven took on DC Comics with SWAMP THING, on Region B Blu-ray/DVD combo from 88 Films.

Deep in an uncharted swamp in the Deep South, Dr. Alec Holland (TWIN PEAKS' Ray Wise) and his sister Linda (Nannette Brown) have been working on a Recombinant DNA experiment to breed plants with the "animal aggression to survive." Alec succeeds in his work just as he falls in love with Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau, THE FOG), a government scientist who has arrived on the project to replace another technician who had a run-in with an alligator. No sooner do they see just what his solution is capable of doing than supervillain Arcane (Louis Jourdan, GIGI) swoops with is foot soldiers – lead by Ferret (David Hess, LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT) and Bruno (Nicholas Worth, DON'T ANSWER THE PHONE) – to take it for himself with the goal of controlling the future food supply and make the world "bow or starve." In the ensuing struggle and firefight, Linda is killed and Alec is doused with his own solution, going up in flames and diving into the swamp. Alice is the only survivor of the massacre, making off with the last notebook that Arcane needs to reproduce the formula with the only help she can depend upon in resourceful local boy Jude (Reggie Batts). When the men pursuing Alice run afoul of the mutated half-plant/half-man "swamp thing" that once was Holland, Arcane sees new possibilities for immortality and decides to use Alice to draw the swamp thing into a trap.

Based upon the short run comic series from the early 1970s by Len Wein, Wes Craven's film SWAMP THING is nothing special as far as DC Comics superhero films. The low budget approach just reveals how overblown the later films have become while being nothing more than an origin story in which a man (or woman) somehow mutates – sometimes through the actions of a bad guy – adapts to their powers, experiences the barriers his or her powers have on meaningful human interaction, and then save their love ones and/or the entire world from a villainous master plan. Holland and Alice know each other a matter of hours and kiss once before tragedy strikes, Swamp Thing – sometimes Wise and most of the time Dick Durock (THE ENFORCER) in a suit that is the most accomplished thing about the make-up effects of William Munns (SUPERSTITION) assisted by David B. Miller (A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET), and Steve LaPorte (DEMENTED) – wanders the swamps with a few obligatory scenes of mourning his lost humanity amidst repeated attacks from and on Arcane's men who are after Alice. Barbeau's government scientist holds her own physically against most attacks, but viewers might get some LAST HOUSE flashbacks in the brutality of the scenes of her being menaced by Hess (not having seen the PG version in a long time, I have no recollection as to whether these bits were softened there). The climax is rather perfunctorily handled, let down by both some awful make-up effects transformations and a fight scene between two stuntmen trudging around a misty swamp. Thankfully, the open ending feels more in line with the close of a comic book story than an invitation for a sequel (which Jim Wynorski would helm with Durock and Jourdan returning and Heather Locklear as the new love interest). The real triumph of the film lies in the production design of the swamplands with its half-submerged cemetery, derelict church turned high-tech laboratory, and the various backwoods locations. The photography of Robbie Greenberg (THE TERMINATOR) seems less deliberately diffused than hampered by the humid shooting conditions while the scoring of Harry Manfredini sounds as indebted to his FRIDAY THE 13TH score as every other soundtrack he did around that time. While Craven's film was not particularly successful in itself despite spawning a sequel and a short-lived television series, SWAMP THING lived on in comics form with DC reviving the character soon after the film and several times sporadically since with the latest being a series in 2016.

Released theatrically and on VHS and laserdisc by Embassy Pictures, SWAMP THING was available throughout the eighties and nineties in its American PG-rated version. When MGM released it on a double-sided non-anamorphic widescreen/fullscreen DVD in 2000, it turned out to be the international version which featured topless views of Barbeau and a later a dancing girl at Arcane's party. When MGM reissued the DVD as an anamorphic release in 2005, the transfer was of the PG version. The PG version also surprisingly was what Scream Factory put out on their 2013 Blu-ray while the international version first turned up on Blu-ray in Germany (92:52 versus 91:12). The international version is also what appears on 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray. The transfer does not look that different from the Scream Factory edition, and the material for the international version does not look to be of any lesser quality so presumably there were legal reasons why the domestic disc had to be the PG version. This alone makes it a worthy purchase for fans of the film. The sole audio option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track. Dialogue is clear and effects get the job done although not in a particularly dynamic fashion. What the lossless track does convey is just how much every Harry Manfredini soundtrack from this period sounds like FRIDAY THE 13TH. Optional English HoH subtitles are included.

Unlike CANDYMAN: FAREWELL TO THE FLESH, 88 Films has not ported the Scream Factory package, dropping the commentary by effects supervisor Munns and interviews with Barbeau, Batts, and creator Wein. The only extra they have carried over is the audio commentary by Craven moderated by HORROR'S HALLOWED GROUNDS' Sean Clark. Craven discusses how he had come to Hollywood and directed some TV movies before landing DEADLY BLESSING, and that the production schedule of the film overlapped with the pre-production of SWAMP THING which he recalls as an unpleasant shoot not only because of the South Carolina swamp settings but also because of the inexperience of himself – he wanted to shoot as much footage as possible of Wise in the suit but ended up not using most of it since he looked so different from Durock – the producers, the effects crew (he describes the Arcane creature as "painful to look at"), and the completion bond company over their shoulders which lead to the cutting of a lot of scenes, particularly during the final third of the film (including an underwater escape scene). Curiously, both suggest that their own confusion about Barbeau's "save the malarkey for your wife" line resulted from missing scenes, but it seems obvious from watching the film that she was under the misapprehension that Alec and Linda were husband and wife at first.

Although the Scream Factory interviews have been dropped, 88 Films tracked down one participant who one would have though was a must for any special edition. In "Swamp Screen: Designing DC's Main Monster" (20:32), production designer Robb Wilson King (RUSH HOUR) recalls working his way up from set decorator to art director when called in to assist David Nichols (MEAN STREETS) who he knew from the Venice, California film scene along with Craven. King would end up co-credited with production design because of the workload and recalls how some of the same features of the swamp that Craven and company felt were a detriment assisted him in constructing the sets. He also reflects on his working relationship with Craven and his friendship with Barbeau while on location. "From Krug to Comics: How the Mainstream Shaped a Radical Genre Voice" (17:34) is a video essay by critic Kim Newman who sees DEADLY BLESSING and SWAMP THING as transitional films between Craven's earlier works and his more mainstream productions while seeing stylistic and thematic links between the likes of LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, and also noting that Craven was one of the filmmakers best able to adapt to the times (noting that SCREAM was as much the epitome of nineties horror as LAST HOUSE and NIGHTMARE were to the 1970s and 1980s). The disc also includes the theatrical trailer (1:31). The cover is reversible while a sixteen-page liner notes booklet of photos and lobby cards, a fold-out poster of the original theatrical art, and slipcase featuring the original theatrical art are limited to the first print run only. (Eric Cotenas)

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