Swamp Thing Blu-ray/DVD Combo Pack Review

Swamp Thingmakes it Blu-ray debut in a Blu-ray/DVD combo pack being released by Scream Factory (Shout! Factory) next month. Directed by Wes Craven and starring Adrienne Barbeau, this film is not really a horror movie, but more (as Adrienne Barbeau says in an interview in the special features) a fairytale. It tells the tale of a group of scientists who are working on a special, secret project in the swamp, developing “a plant with an animal’s aggressive power for survival,” as Doctor Holland (Ray Wise) says in an early scene. The idea is to fight world hunger.  Of course, a group of bad guys led by Arcane (Louis Jourdan) wishes to possess it for its own selfish, nefarious purposes.

Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) is the newest scientist to arrive at the facility, and though she is there only briefly before everything goes wrong, she and Dr. Alec Holland fall in love. This is just as Dr. Holland finds surprising success in his work, creating a vegetable cell with an animal nucleus.  A group of bad guys in camouflage, including Ferret (David Hess, from Wes Craven’s Last House On The Left), storm their facility, killing almost everyone. Dr. Holland catches fire after a vile of his serum explodes, and he runs into the swamp. Adrienne manages to hide Holland’s final notebook with the formula before she’s captured.

Arcane is one of those arch villains, those megalomaniacs that abound in comic books. His loving secretary tells him, “The world will bow or starve.” It’s good to have that kind of support. But don’t worry – Swamp Thing soon rises to help Alice Cable.

There is some good humor throughout the film. Jude, the kid who works at the gas station, is kind of great at times. When Cable kicks at a soda machine, Jude tells her, “Kickin’ don’t help nothing. You gotta punch it.” And you can’t help but feel for Swamp Thing. It’s tough – his sister is dead, the girl he just met and fell for is frightened of him, his lab is destroyed, his colleagues are all gone. Yet he still finds beauty in the flowers.

This movie is much better than I’d remembered it being. Though there is some ridiculous stuff, like Arcane having infiltrated the scientists by wearing a mask that looks exactly like one of them, and the magical healing power of the Swamp Thing. And the end is very, very silly. (And what about the notebook with the formula? Shouldn’t they retrieve that?)

Special Features

As you would expect in a special edition like this one, there are lots of special features. There are two separate commentary tracks. The first is with writer/director Wes Craven. Wes Craven always does good commentary tracks, and this one is moderated by Sean Clark, who also moderated the commentary on Deadly Blessing.  Wes Craven talks about working in the swamp, making a lot of noise to scare off snakes and alligators. He was not a comic book reader as a kid, and so not familiar with the Swamp Thing comic book before taking on this project. He talks a bit about having to make cuts to stay on budget. Apparently the completion bond company was problematic. It was mostly in the third act where cuts were made, including an underwater sequence that he had planned to shoot. His anecdotes about the fire stunt are particularly interesting. Wes says the stunt man tried out various chemicals next to his family’s pool when teaching himself how to do fire stunts. (The same stuntman did the first stunt in A Nightmare On Elm Street.) Wes: “I learned a lot of things on this film. One is you never talk to the actors or actresses about your problems as a director. Because they don’t want to hear that. They want to feel like you’re totally in control.”

The second commentary track is by William Munns, the makeup effects artist who created the Swamp Thing look. (This track is also moderated, this time by Michael Felsher.) He talks about getting his start in the business, and about teaching makeup in the seventies. (There is a long gap in this commentary track, by the way, after he talks about his start and before he begins talking about his experience on Swamp Thing.) He talks about the problems with the suits. His bid for the job had stated he would need twelve weeks, but when he got the go-ahead, they told him he had only six weeks. Then he did a sculpt with one stunt guy, who then ended up not doing the film. It ended up being Dick Durock, who was not the same size. Of course, Munns has nothing but positive things to say about Dick Durock. Interestingly, William Munns actually does some of the fight scene at the end of the film, wearing the Arcane monster suit.

There are also several short features. The first is “Tales From The Swamp,” and is a seventeen-minute interview with Adrienne Barbeau. She says she loved the script, which is why she signed on, but then the budget got cut, so the movie that was made wasn’t the movie that was intended. She talks about doing horror films, about being identified with that genre. As I mentioned earlier, she says she didn’t see Swamp Thing as a horror film, but more of a fairytale. And of course she talks about the difficulties of filming in swamps.

The second is “Hey, Jude!” This is an interview with Reggie Batts, who played Jude in the film. He talks about getting the role, and about his experiences with the rest of the cast. (This feature is approximately fourteen and a half minutes.) “That Swamp Thing: A Look Back With Len Wein” is an interview with the creator of Swamp Thing. He tells the anecdote of coming up with the title, and talks about his feelings about the film.

The special features also include the theatrical trailer, as well as photo galleries of posters, lobby cards and behind-the-scenes photos.

Swamp Thing is scheduled to be released on August 6, 2013 through Scream Factory, a division of Shout! Factory.