Customer Reviews

Swamp Devil

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a very interesting movie. The effects were very cool and the plot was entertaining. I think the whole family could enjoy this because there is little language, not a ton of gore, and no sex. It has some action and is thoroughly entertaining. I highly recommend it for sci-fi fans.

for a Sci Fi type of movie, it was actually pretty good! usually when i think of Sci Fi type movies, i automatically skip it, but i decided to give this one a shot and i actually liked it.
Even though there were some small plot holes as to why the monster couldn't cross county lines
or how it became to be an actual monster?
but i dont sit there and talk negitively about every horror movie and how it sucked b.c it didnt do this or that, blah blah blah.
dont want to hear the BS.
it was a good movie for a low budget film.
i enjoyed it a lot and i might just add it to my horror collection. :)
good job you guys

This movie wasn't too bad. The chacaters were very likable. The Swamp Devil wasn't that scarey, but maybe it would have been if I lived in the woods or near a swamp! If you're looking for a good, creepy movie that the whole family can watch, this is a good choice. There's no sex and only one scene was the least bit gorey. I don't recall any bad language. I think I'll probably dust it off one day and watch it again.

this is great it has gore,
creature violence,guns.
and the most important thing
a kinda good ending.so no
more bad reviews please.

Part of the Maneater series, Swamp Devil (2008) isn't great, but with a decent story, good acting, and passable special effects, it is slightly better than your average B grade monster movie. The swamp devil creature doesn't actually eat humans, just kills them. Entirely a CGI creation, the monster is a humanoid shaped bundle of twisted roots, vines, stalks, and branches. While obviously fake, this is at least a different kind of creature, that offers some things perhaps not seen before.

Melanie Blaine (Cindy Sampson) receives a call from Jimmy Fuller (Nicolas Wright), an old classmate she barely remembers, who tells her that her estranged father, Howard Blaine (Bruce Dern) is dying. Arriving back at the town of Gibbington, a place she last saw at about age seven, she meets Jimmy and discovers that her father, a former law man, is actually wanted for the murder of a young woman found in a nearby swamp.

Melanie goes to stay at her father's cabin in the woods, and receives a visit from Sheriff Nelson Bois (James Kidnie), deputy Jolene Harris (Allison Graham), and Ed Jones (Robert Higden), the father of the dead girl. The following day, Melanie has a reunion with her Dad, and learns the secret behind the origin of the creature. Along with those that are left, they struggle to find a way to destroy the swamp devil.

The story is not that complicated, and you can probably see the reveal coming from some distance, but at least there are no really stupid and annoying characters. Cindy Sampson (High Plains Invaders) is an engaging actress, who does what she can with her role, and Allison Graham plays a more prominent role than might first be expected. With his voice sounding quite raspy and almost unrecognizable, Bruce Dern reportedly broke his ankle early in the production. If true, although his mobility may be impaired, Dern still manages to take a very active part in battling the swamp devil. Shotguns don't prove very effective against the creature. A chainsaw might have made a more appropriate weapon, however wielding one might have been too much for Dern to manage on one leg.

While things get a little too cute at the end, Swamp Devil is a nicely executed and mostly entertaining B movie, with an intriguing monster. The film appears on the Sy Fy schedule, so you may want to check it out there first before making a purchase.

Felt bad seeing Bruce Dern slide downhill into this type of movie. On the whole, it wasn't bad considering some of the other grade "D" out there.

This film was horrible. The monster looked so fake and unbelievable. The BEST part of the film is the lead actress. The plot stinks and the movie is a total waste of time! Avoid this at all costs!

I had to get this. However, the dialogue and the other actors are so bad as to make this a highly entertaining film, up there with the likes of Shark Attack 3. Buy, laugh, and enjoy this train wreck of a movie.

* DVD Note: The audio on this DVD was a little messed up at parts, creating occasional minor electronic feedback. I thought at first it was my DVD player or TV, but I tried another player on another TV, and the problem persisted. Don't know if a whole bad batch of these went out, or if it was just mine. The disc itself looks fine and undamaged.

Swamp Devil (David Winning, 2008)

It does not help that I have spent the week since I watched this movie confusing David Winning, the director of such timeless classics as Swamp Devil and Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie with Michael Winner, who actually did direct some timeless classics. Um, as long as you consider exploitation and horror films timeless classics. (Winner was behind Death Wish, The Sentinel, and Appointment with Death, among others.) Yeah, sure, Death Wish is a silly movie with little redeeming social value, but when you put it up against Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie, it's great stuff. So I've been going around thinking "Michael Winner directed this?" to myself for a week, when it wasn't That's a relief.

There's an interesting subset of SyFy Channel Original Movies: the look-alike movie. Not necessarily that the movie is ripped off from another movie (you can pretty much take that as a given with SFCOMs), but that the casting director was told "we want X, Y, and Z, and if we can't get X, Y, and Z, get me people who look as much like them as you can!", and the casting director did as impeccable a job as possible at getting look-alikes for better-known, and usually more talented, stars. Swamp Devil is the most recent movie like this I've caught, and I have to admit it does lend the movie something of an amusing air it would have otherwise not had, perhaps saving it, however briefly, from the painful obscurity to which it is most certainly destined.

Plot: Melanie Blaime (Sex and the Single Mom's Cindy Sampson), a high-powered New York something-or-other, gets a call from her hometown. The gist: her father, Howard (Tattoo's Bruce Dern), is dying. Despite having vowed to herself to never set foot in that town again, she finds herself going back. She's met at the county line by Jimmy (Accidentally on Purpose's Nicolas Wright), who originally called her, and admits he told something of a little white lie; her dad's not dying, he's on the run from the law, accused of the murder of a local girl (stuntwoman Mari-Pier Gaudet). See, the murder greatly resembles that of Howard's wife many years earlier, so the local constabulary, as well as a contingent of vigilantes, are hunting the old man. Melanie agrees to try and help him, accompanied by Jimmy, but she starts realizing things are not quite as they seem pretty quickly. Now all she has to do is convince the law of that, in the persons of Sheriff Nelson (5ive Girls' James Kidnie) and Deputy Jolene (Summer's Blood's Allison Graham).

Stick three days' growth of beard on Nicolas Wright and he could pass for a slightly rounder Jake Gyllenhaal. And then there's Bigg, one of the vigilantes, played by Kwasi Songui (currently on the TV series Blue Mountain State); blend three parts Ving Rhames and one part Michael Clarke Duncan and you've got Songui. You see where I'm going with the whole "look-alikes" gig? It (along with Sampson, very cute, and Graham, drop-dead gorgeous; Gaudet is also exceptionally attractive, but gets very little screen time) gives the movie a touch of visual appeal. This is a good thing, because the movie has nothing else.

Bruce Dern, what happened to you? You used to be such a fine actor, full of promise, and you fulfilled that promise in the seventies and eighties in big Hollywood productions (Oscar-nommed for Coming Home) and quirky indie flicks (the aforementioned Tattoo) alike. And then... well, something happened, didn't it? And now you're making movies like Swamp Devil in order to make rent. And don't get me wrong, Dern is far and away the best actor in this flick, and Kidnie and Graham, though they're generally character actors, are no slouches either. Still, you can only make do with the material you're given, and the material here is painful. Derivative, schlocky, an excuse for cheap special effects. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that someone involved in the production was shooting a bayou flick of some sort whose production wrapped early, and offered the location to Winning and crew for the rest of the lease to film a quickie Corman (or Merian C. Cooper)-style. The difference is that Corman hired screenwriters who knew what they were doing, kinda, while Winning is stuck with Gary Dauberman, another one of those "timeless classics" guys (he wrote BloodMonkey. Yes, if you've never heard of it, there really is a movie called BloodMonkey, and it's as awesome as you suspect given the title).

Truth: I have a thing for redheads, and will watch Allison Graham in anything by default. I also have a thing (though a different one) for Jake Gyllenhaal, and while Nicolas Wright is a low-rent knockoff, he'll do until Gyllenhaal gets back to making good movies. So I was predestined to like this more than most people, but rest assured, your mileage will vary. This is bad. **

Okay guys, it's time to find another inspiration other than Evil Dead II.

I get it. I love Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell too. But Raimi took his inspiration from other movies - the Ghost Story series, for example - and it seems none of these directors bother to do their homework. In director David Winning's case, it's the vine attack scene.

The Swamp Devil in question is a serial killer who was set upon by the locals and left for dead. Now the Swamp Devil is back with new tree superpowers and he's out for revenge against former sheriff Howard Blaine (Bruce Dern). What Blaine doesn't realize is that his estranged daughter Melanie (Cindy Sampson) has been lured back to the town of Gibbington by a former classmate, Jimmy Fuller (Nicolas Wright). It seems there's been a fresh spate of murders -- a buxom blonde who for a few minutes gives hope to fan boys everywhere before dying with her clothes on - and her father Ed Jones (Robert Higden) is out for revenge. Poor Blaine: he's got the law, a lynch mob, and his daughter after him.

Back to the Evil Dead choreography. We see fast tracking shots through the forest, snaking shots of tentacle-like vines, and victims are frequently penetrated by plants. Evil Dead did a lot of things right, but movies like Swamp Devil capture on the look and not the feel of the horror. It's fine to pay homage to a movie great, but it's time to find other inspiration.

Fortunately, the villain decides to show himself in all his vegetable glory, and what we get looks a lot like Swamp Thing. Stylistically, Swamp Thing isn't a bad design choice. The villain is a long-legged horror that only occasionally blends in with its surroundings. He's green, mean, stalking machine. He's also not particularly scary.

The movie really hinges on the relationship between the Blaines. Unfortunately, Sampson and Dern can't carry the movie. Sampson is bewildered for much of the movie and Dern mumbles his way through every scene.

The ending concludes with a forehead-slapping moment. It seems that, for reasons that are never explained, the Swamp Devil can't escape the confines of the town. But if that's true, Howard's insistence on staying within the confines really tests the audience's patience. And that's what you'll need if you want to see the inevitable showdown at the town's border.