Horror Film Review: The Return of Swamp Thing (dir by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What fresh Hell is this?

The 1989 film Return of Swamp Thing is one of the many bayou-set films that I’ve watched recently. On most streaming sites, it is listed as being a “horror film” and there’s a few horror elements to be found in the film. There’s mutants and hybrids and evil moonshiners. There’s a lot jokes that are so corny that you might get scared just from hearing them. I can accept the idea that this film is technically a part of the horror genre but the film is more of a comedy than anything else. That’s not a complaint on my part, by the way. I knew what I was getting into as soon as I saw that it was directed by Jim Wynorski. Jim Wynorski has been poking fun at himself and his films for longer than I’ve been alive.

Return of Swamp Thing is a sequel to Wes Craven’s 1982 Swamp Thing, a film that I haven’t seen but which I’ve been assured was considerably more serious than the sequel. (That’s the difference between Craven and Wynorski.) The film features Louis Jourdan as Dr. Arcane, a mad scientist who lives in a mansion in Louisiana. Dr. Arcane is obsessed with finding the secret to immortality, which he thinks lies in splicing together different strands of DNA. As a result of Arcane’s experiments, the swamp is now crawling with bizarre human/animal hybrids. The bayou is no longer a safe place but, fortunately, the bayou has a protector! Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) is a human-plant hybrid who wanders around the swamp and beats up evil doers. Swamp Thing is described as being a humanoid vegetable but he really just looks like a stuntman wearing a green costume.

Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear) is Dr. Arcane’s stepdaughter. She thinks that Arcane had something to do with her mother’s death and, of course, he did. Abby heads down to the swamp to confront Arcane but, unfortunately, it turns out that she’s in over her head when it comes to surviving in the bayou. When she’s not being chased by the weird mutant creatures, she’s having to deal with toothless moonshiners. Do you know what the worst bayou is? Bayouself! (Did I already tell that joke this month?) Fortunately, Abby is not alone for long because Swamp Thing emerges from the water and protects her. Abby quickly falls in love with Swamp Thing.

“I’m a plant,” Swamp Thing tells her.

“I’m a vegetarian,” she replies, which I guess means she’s going to cannibalize Swamp Thing after he’s no longer any use to her. Yikes! Look out, Swamp Thing!

Dr. Arcane wants to use Abby’s DNA for his experiments. Swamp Thing decides to protect Abby and the two dumbass kids who keep following him around. It’s time for a battle in the bayou!

Obviously, Wynorski does not approach this material seriously or with a hint of subtlety and that’s definitely the right approach to take. The sight of Louis Jourdan in the Louisiana bayous is so ludicrous that you have no choice but to laugh at it. That said, the film is never quite as funny as one might hope. It’s easy to imagine it working as a 30-minute pilot for a Swamp Thing sitcom but, as an 90-minute film, it quickly runs out of gas. Louis Jourdan looks bored but Dick Durock is amusingly earnest as Swamp Thing. Heather Locklear shows a flair for comedy but the box office failure of The Return of Swamp Thing pretty much ended her film career before it began.

After this, I think I’m going to avoid the swamp for a while.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: Three Coins In The Fountain (dir by Jean Negulesco)

Posted on April 20, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1954 Best Picture nominee, Three Coins In The Fountain, tells the story of three American women living in Rome. They’re all employed by the same secretarial agency. Maria Williams (Maggie McNamara) is young and hoping that she’ll stay in Rome for at least a year and that she’ll meet her future husband. Anita Hutchins (Jean Peters) is not-so-young and is planning on returning to America so that she can meet her own future husband. Miss Frances (Dorothy McGuire) is middle-aged and has spent the last 15 years working for the man that she wishes could be her future husband.

If you’re getting the feeling that there’s not much to our leads beyond a desire to get married, you’re not wrong. However, Anita swears that it’s impossible to find a husband in Rome because the only Italians who are interested in “secretaries” are too poor to be good husbands which …. well, like I mentioned before, this film is from 1954. Just the fact that the film featured three single women living together in a foreign country was probably considered to be daring back in 1954.

The three women eventually end up at the Trevi Fountain, where Maria and Frances throw in their coins and make their wishes. Anita, however, does not toss in a coin because apparently, she’s not scared of offending God. No sooner have the three women visited the fountain than things begin to happen. Soon, all three of them are in love but each has to deal with a compliction.

Miss Frances may have finally convinced her employer, writer John Frederick Shadwell (Clifton Webb), to marry her but when he discovers that he’s terminally ill, he tries to call off the engagment.

Maria meets Prince Dino di Cessi (Louis Jourdan) but will the Prince still want to be with her after he discovers that she’s been lying about being interested in the same things that he’s interested in?

Anita falls for Giorgio (Rossano Brazzi) but he’s poor! Plus, he also works for the agency and apparently, there’s some sort of weird 1954 rule that forbids the American employees from fraternizing with the Italian employees. Is Anita willing to lose her job just so she can marry someone who doesn’t have any money?

That’s pretty much it. Other than John Shadwell wrestling with his own mortality, there’s really not a whole lot of drama to be found in Three Coins In The Fountain. This is a film about pleasant people doing pleasant things and having pleasant conversations. It’s a rather chaste romance, one of those films where you have no doubt that everyone involved will wait until marriage and that all of the women will quit their jobs and settle down as soon as the right ring gets put on their finger. In other words, this is very much a film of its time and watching it today can be bit of an odd experience. This is ultimately the type of film that works best as a travelogue. Rome looks beautiful. There’s a striking shot of the sunset reflected in the canals of Venice. The Trevi Fountain truly does look like it can grant wishes. (It’s amusing to compare the reverence that the American-made Three Coins In The Fountain shows towards The Trevi Fountain to the way that Rome-native Federico Fellini used the fountain in La Dolce Vita.) One gets the feeling that, even in 1954, people flocked to this film more to see Rome than to really worry about whether or not the Prince would eventually propose.

In fact, one of the main reasons why I watched this film tonight is because I spent one of the greatest summers of my life in Italy. I’ve been to Rome. I’ve thrown coins into the Trevi Fountain and I’ve made wishes. I loved Rome. I loved the people. I loved the culture. I loved the buildings. I loved the feeling of walking through history. I loved looking out at the horizon and feeling as if I was somehow in a living painting. (I actually went into a bit of daze when I was in Florence. Stendhal Syndrome is for real.) If you can’t find romance in Rome then you’re obviously not looking. For me, the main appeal of Three Coins In The Fountain was being able to watch it and say, “I’ve been there!” I imagine for audiences in 1954, the appeal was probably to be able to watch it and say, “I’m going to go there!”

How did this perfectly pleasant but otherwise unmemorable film end up as a best picture nominee? I imagine a lot of it had to do with the fact that the film was a box office success. It’s certainly not because it was a better film than either Rear Window or Sabrina, both of which were not nominated for Best Picture despite being nominated for Best Director. In the end, the 1954 Best Picture Oscar was won by On The Waterfront, a film that appears to be taking place in an entirely different universe than Three Coins In A Fountain.

Cleaning Out The DVR: The V.I.P.s (dir by Anthony Asquith)

Posted on March 31, 2021 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1963 film, The V.I.P.s, is about a group of very important people who have all shown at Heathrow Airport at the same time, all in an effort to get the Hell out of England. They’ve all got their own individual reasons for wanting to leave the country but the important thing is that they all want to leave. Unfortunately, a fog has rolled onto the runway and the plane can’t take off. Because this film was made in 1963, all the passengers are allowed to leave the plane and wait, overnight, in a hotel.

Among the Very Important People:

Flamboyant film producer Max Buda (Orson Welles, playing a version of himself) needs to leave London before he receives a gigantic tax bill. Accompanying him is his latest discovery, Gloria Gritti (Elsa Martinelli). Max is the type who does things like barging into the plane’s cockpit and demanding to know why the pilots aren’t willing to risk crashing the plane. That may sound self-centered on Max’s part but Welles is such a charmer that you forgive him. Add to that, he’s trying to avoid paying taxes and that’s something that I can definitely get behind.

The Duchess of Brighton (Margaret Rutherford) is an eccentric but impoverished noblewoman who is going to lose her home if she doesn’t fly to Florida and take on a somewhat demeaning job. The Duchess is the type who struggles to find room in the overhead compartment for her ludicrous oversized hatbox. She’s never really been out in the real world before. Margaret Rutherford won an Oscar for her performance, which is occasionally amusing but never particularly subtle. (Have you seen Airport? Rutherford has the Helen Hayes role, basically.)

Lee Mangrum (Rod Taylor) is a businessman who is on the verge of losing his business. Miss Mead (Maggie Smith) is his secretary. Miss Mead is secretly in love with Lee, who somehow hasn’t noticed. We’re supposed to sympathize with Lee but he’s so incredibly clueless that it’s hard not to feel that Miss Mead could do better.

Finally, we have Frances Andros (Elizabeth Taylor). Frances is one of the most popular film stars in the world. She’s married to Paul Andros (Richard Burton), who is very wealthy and who, like most Burton characters, is also very moody. Frances has decided to leave Paul and go to America with her lover, Marc Champselle (Louis Jourdan). However, the fog gives Paul a chance to come to the airport and try to talk Frances out of leaving him.

Make no mistake about it, Liz Taylor and Burton are the main attraction here. Welles, Rod Taylor, Rutherford, and Smith all get plenty of scenes but it’s obvious that the people behind The V.I.P.s understood that most of the audience would be there to watch Liz and Burton acting opposite each other. This was, I think, the first film that they made together after falling in love on the set of Cleopatra. Due to Cleopatra’s legendarily difficult production, it was released around the same time as The V.I.P.s, despite going into production years before the latter film. Audiences could go watch Liz and Dick fall in love in Cleopatra and then head over to a different theater and watch the two of them fight in The V.I.Ps. Elizabeth Taylor may be playing Frances Andros and Richard Burton may be playing Paul Andros but they really might as well be playing themselves.

The V.I.P.s is a big and glossy film, the type of movie that the Hollywood studios used to make as their way of saying, “See! You won’t get this on TV!” It’s frequently silly but it’s also undeniably watchable. While Burton and Taylor’s later films tended to feature the two of them at their worst, they’re both actually really good in The V.I.P.s and the scenes where they argue have an emotional heft to them that, with the exception of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woof?, wasn’t found in their other films. For once, you watch the film and you really do hope that Liz and Dick will work things out and stay together. The V.I.P.s may be dated (just try to chase someone through an airport or get off a delayed flight now) but it’s still entertaining.

A Movie A Day #101: Swamp Thing (1982, directed by Wes Craven)

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Jedadiah Leland

I have been dreading this moment for a while.

Ever since I decided that, while we are reviewing every episode of Twin Peaks, that every entry in Movie A Day would have a connection with the show, I knew that I would have to eventually review Swamp Thing. I didn’t want to because I hate Swamp Thing but, outside of his work as Leland Palmer, it is also Ray Wise’s most famous role. One of the good things about Twin Peaks is that it saved Ray Wise from being forever known as Swamp Thing.

Of course, Ray Wise does not really play Swamp Thing. He plays Alec Holland, the human scientist who is working on a formula that will allow animals and plants to thrive in extreme environments. When the evil Dr. Arcane (Louis Jourdan) sends his henchmen (including veteran bad guys David Hess and Nicholas Worth) to steal the formula, Alec gets set on fire and runs into the Louisiana bayou. When Alec emerges, he has become Swamp Thing, half-human and half-plant. He is also now played by Dick Durock. Swamp Thing must protect both bodacious Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) and streetwise swamp kid Jude (Reggie Batts) while trying to prevent Arcane from using the formula to turn himself into a werewolf and conquer the world.

Despite the easily mocked name, Swamp Thing has often been one of the best characters in the DC universe. The movie does not being to do the character justice. At the time, Wes Craven was best known for movies like Last House on the Left and The Hills Have Eyes. Swamp Thing was an attempt to show that he could direct a big-budget, studio production. Unfortunately, Craven takes a deliberately campy approach to the material, to the extent that, if not for a handful of scenes like Swamp Thing crushing David Hess’s skull, Swamp Thing could have easily been directed by Joel Schumacher during his Batman years. Just the name Swamp Thing is campy enough. There’s no need to toss in Louis Jourdan turning into a werewolf. Fans of Adrienne Barbeau will do better to rewatch Escape from New York than sit through Swamp Thing.

Fortunately, for Ray Wise, Twin Peaks came along and saved him from forever being known as Swamp Thing.

4 Shots From 4 Films: Wes Craven Edition

Posted on August 2, 2015 by Arleigh

Today is the birthday of one of the masters of horror. So, here’s wishing Wes Craven a happy birthday.

Now, go out there and check out his films. Here’s a four to try out. It’s got voodoo, a thing from the swamp, a street full of nightmares and, the one that started him off, the very last house on the left.

4 SHOTS FROM 4 FILMS

The Serpent and the Rainbow (dir. by Wes Craven)

Swamp Thing (dir. by Wes Craven)

A Nightmare on Elm Street (dir. by Wes Craven)

The Last House on the Left (dir. by Wes Craven)

James Bond Review: Octopussy (dir. by John Glen)

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Arleigh

We’re at the home stretch in the Roger Moore-era of Ian Fleming’s James Bond film series. During his time in the role as Britain’s super spy extraordinaire we’ve seen him put his own personal stamp on the role. It was a daunting task seeing the role had been played by Sean Connery early in the film series and had done such a great job of making the character such a cultural icon that anyone following him would forever be compared. Moore doesn’t just hold his own, but has built such a loayl following in the role that many consider his portrayal of Agent 007 as the best in the series.

His Bond when compared to Connery’s portrayal was more the witty charmer who tried to use his wits and brains to solve problematic (usually dangerous ones) situations he finds himself in. Connery’s Bond was more the physical type whose charm belied a much darker personality streak that Moore’s portrayal could never pull off no matter how the writers tried.

The Roger Moore-era also redefined the franchise as more more about action and less and less thriller with each new film. This culminates in Moore’s most action-packed film in the role with the 13th Bond film (produced by EON) in Octopussy.

The film begins with one of the more impressive opening sequences in the series as we find Bond in the middle of an undercover mission in Cuba. This intro’s stunt work with Bond piloting a mini-plane in and around Cuban airspace to escape and, at the same time, fulfill his mission remains a highlight in the series where each new film tries to raise the bar in terms of well-choreographed and very complicated action scenes.

Octopussy sees Bond traveling to India, East and West Germany to halt the nuclear and warmongering ambitions of a Soviet general who sees his country’s nuclear disarmament talks with the West as inviting defeat for the Soviet Union. We also have the theft of priceless Russian treasures like the Faberge Eggs being used to finance this general’s plan to complicate bond’s main mission. The plot for Octopussy is a reminder of the time it was filmed in. Reagan and Thatcher had a strong control of the West and their confrontational attitudes towards the Soviet Union and it’s satellite states made people believe that the world was on the brink of war. This public sentiment affected the fiction and entertainment of the time with Cold War thrillers becoming ascendant once more.

As much as the basic outline of the film’s plot looked to be impressive on the face of it the way the story unfolded was quite a hit-and-miss affair. I put some of this on the shoulders of it’s director John Glen who seemed more interested in moving the story from one action scene to the next while paying just the minimum of lip-service to the quieter scenes that occur in-between.

This being Moore’s sixth Bond film we pretty much know how his Bond operates. So, it falls to fleshing out his rivals and enemies to help create a much more interesting film beyond the extravagant action scenes. We learn about the agendas and personalities of Bond’s rivals through too much exposition info dumps. Even the title’ character of Octopussy (played by Maud Adams) we don’t get to learn much of other than a brief personal history dialogue she has with Bond the first time we meet. Of Bond’s two enemies in the film one is the warmongering General Orlov (played by Steven Berkoff) who comes off like an over-the-top caricature with a distinct speech pattern to match. The other is the exiled Afghan prince Kamal Khan who comes off a bit more fleshed out as Octopussy’s covetous partner-in-crime. Louis Jourdan as Kamal Khan plays the role with a sense of panache and joie de vivre that at times he’s able to match Moore’s Bond in the charisma department whenever the two share the screen together.

What should interest people about Octopussy are the very action scenes I spoke about earlier. From the opening sequence in Cuba to a thrilling race against time that traverses from East Germany to West Germany to stop a nuclear weapon from detonating it’s no wonder some people consider Octopussy as a favorite. I enjoyed the film for these very sequences despite missteps in the overall execution of the plot and inconsistencies in the performances of the cast. Yet, the film had the DNA to be much better and after repeated viewings one could see that in the hands of a different filmmaker and changes in the cast this sixth Moore-era Bond film had the potential to be one of the best.

Octopussy would mark the start of the franchise’s decline in the face of much more violent and action-packed action films of the 80’s. The film tried to keep up with this rising trend in action filmmaking during the 80’s. It was able to succeed in a fashion in making the series much more action-packed (though quite bloodless in comparison to what was about to come out of Hollywood in the coming years), but in doing so the film’s storyline and characters suffered that the film doesn’t hold up the test of time unlike some of the early Connery and Moore films.

On a side note, the film did have one of my favorite Bond song’s with Rita Coolidge singing “All Time High” in the intro sequence. A song title that was quite ironic considering that the film definitely didn’t hit an all time high.