This is the first of what I hope is many reviews I aim to write in a little section called Cult Film Corner. Cult Film Corner could cover many things – genuine cult pictures with a passionate following, cheesy b-movies, the most horrendous pieces of awfulness committed to celluloid, and those films that seem to fall through the cracks and avoid making the slightest mark on the collective pop-culture consciousness. Today, dear reader, is Swamp Thing.
Swamp Thing (1982) is based on the DC Comics title of the same name. Written and directed by Wes Craven, it tells the tale of scientist Alec Holland (Ray Wise) and his attempts to meld animal and vegetable DNA to create hardier, stronger plants to help solve the global food crisis. He’s aided in his quest by chesty new arrival Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau). Funded and protected by the US Government and his laboratory built in the middle of swamps of South Carolina, he discovers a formula that causes plants to grow at an exceptional rate. Unfortunately, evil genius Dr Arcane (Louis Jourdan) hears about this, and thinking the formula will make him immortal, he sends his private army to steal the formula and destroy the laboratory. During this raid Holland is accidentally covered in the formula and bursts into flames, running and screaming he dives into the swamp and is assumed to have been killed…
