Simply A Masterpiece

A Disappointing Continuation

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

This film is nothing more than a countrified remake of terrible film called Voodoo Woman (1956). Yes it's countrified - listen to the accents. And the acting is just as awful as the original film. This is a classic example of a no-budget z-grade film with actors going nowhere.Why in the heck did they think that Voodoo Woman needed a remake to begin with - and if they did decide to remake the film then why make it worse than the already terrible original film? Shouldn't this film be a little bit better than the original? UGH! Okay to be fair this is a made for TV remake so I guess it shouldn't be a bit better than the original but I wish it was. I couldn't make it through the first film and there's no way I can make it through this film.I like a bad B-film that is good but these are so bad they are a waste of film, time and a little bit of money to make. Not to mention a waste of time to finish watching.1/10

Let's be clear here. Larry Buchanan is a terrible film maker. If I had known this was one of his movies when I picked it on my streaming Netflix account, I would not have watched it. It is ineptly bad, and it is not quite clear at any time whether the director knows this or not. It's hard to focus on just one element of badness. You have to laugh when you see the Mad Scientist throw dead bodies into the pool to be consumed by alligators. I mean, you can see that it is a clean, normal swimming pool in many shots, then the scene switches to what appears to be a muddy, shallow outdoor swamp where the actual gators are. Was I supposed to see that? Was it an oversight? They blew the budget acquiring that footage apparently, because the actual "swamp creature" effects at the big finale look like they cost about $25, and I'm being generous.I confess I liked one thing: the Mad Scientist's voice. It was so deliciously over-the-top, it went perfectly with his ridiculous lines. To listen to him interact with his lackeys, it would seem that they're all just one mistake away from being terminated from his employ - permanently. All the other characters were just boring, with John Agar's presence almost incidental.

A petroleum engineer, Mr. West, registers at a motel in the swamp. He's there to explore for oil, and he's to meet his partner, Mr. Rogers (Agar), the next day. The handful of people running the motel treat the possibility of finding oil the way the cowboys in the old Westerns treated finding gold. They kill Mr. West and the leading lady, Simmons in capri pants and beehive hair do, decides to pose as Mr. West's wife and accompany Rogers on his trek.This is only twenty minutes into the movie and already I felt a mysterious numbness creeping up my spine. How -- this is what I foolishly wondered -- how can Simmons pose as Mr. West's wife? For all anyone knows, Rogers and West have been close friends for years. How is it plausible that a total stranger could claim to know all about a man she'd only met hours before and exchanged a dozen words with? It was "foolish" to ask because if you let yourself get hung up on a question of such MINOR significance, you'll be stunned into unconsciousness as the rest of the film unfolds.It's not worth going on about. The plot was written by two plods who were on some experimental psychedelic drug. The acting is what you'd expect from the cast of a high school play in East Orange. Uncertain, Texas -- yes, that's the location's real name -- gives a good impression of swampiness. It's an impressive ecosystem. The plot depicts it as an African jungle. A man hacks his way through the bush with a machete while Agar strolls casually behind, holding his sports jacket flung over his shoulder, a tourist on vacation. Jungle drums beat messages back and forth. (No kidding.) Agar looks fine, by the way, considering the stresses that time and self abuse must have imposed on his appearance.I couldn't get through it. I was in the thrall of that numbness and was barely able to shut this monstrosity off. To sum it up, if someone gave you a camera, small crew, a handful of people claiming to be actors, and sent you to Uncertain, Texas, with the sole instruction: "Make a movie about sinister goings-on in this swamp," you would do at least as good a job.I'm giving this two stars instead of one, but only because it could be worse. It could be a Nazi or Stalinist propaganda film.

Curse of the Swamp Creatures (1966) BOMB (out of 4) Incredibly bad film from the infamous director Larry Buchanan. One jackass goes into the Everglades to find oil when he encounters a jackass scientist mixing alligators and humans. The budget of this thing is so low that the director just used black people for his half human/half alligator creatures. When the title character finally shows up he looks pretty good but he doesn't get on the screen until the very last scene in the movie. Bad on all levels and only recommended to those who are wanting to take off five years of their life. The original film, Voodoo Woman, wasn't any good but compared to this it's a masterpiece.