This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Most undeservingly overhyped movie of all time??

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

An innocent man had vowed revenge on the lynch mob who strung him up and two generations of men have been dying along the bayou in mysterious ways ever since. The latest is the village ferryman whose granddaughter takes over his scow and falls for a young man whose father was also involved in the tragedy. Legend has it that the curse can be lifted if a descendant offers their life to the spectre and when it comes for the girl's beau, well... German director Frank Wisbar re-worked his Reich film FAHRMANN MARIA for PRC and, like fellow émigré Edgar G. Ulmer, he knew how to make an atmospheric film on a shoestring budget. Set almost entirely in a fog- enshrouded swamp of gnarled trees and murky waters, the tale visually resembles it's predecessor but the theme has changed from a "love and death" fable to revenge from beyond the grave. In the original, Death itself had come to take Maria's lover but in the re-make, it's a vengeful ghost. Even so, both gals bargain for the life of their man. B-movie bad guy Charles Middleton ("Ming The Merciless") was the vengeful cadaver in the mist and Maria was played by "Miss America 1941" Rosemary La Planche. Although Maria was the real hero, future producer/director Blake Edwards, of all people, played "the hero" and he wasn't a bad-looking guy. As far as Poverty Row chills go, STRANGLER is a cut above the rest thanks to an imaginative director.

Poverty Row cheapie that's much better than its modest production would suggest. There's been a series of murders by strangulation in the swamp. The superstitious locals believe it's the ghost of an innocent man they hanged seeking revenge. The hanged man's granddaughter shows up, looking to take over her grandfather's ferry business. She soon falls in love with a young man who happens to be the son of one of her grandfather's killers. Gramps won't like that!Lots of foggy atmosphere, a nice cast, and some neat special effects elevate this PRC chiller above most of the other Poverty Row films of the time. The cast includes vets Robert Barratt and Charles Middleton. Future director Blake Edwards and former Miss America Rosemary LaPlanche play the young lovers. Some genuinely creepy moments in this one. Probably the best PRC film I've seen.

Strangler From The Swamp is an effective little picture, produced by the notorious PRC studios. What we have is one of the best horror entries "Poverty Row" ever came up with. That isn't saying a great deal, of course, but Strangler has atmosphere to spare, and achieves some genuinely eerie moments amidst the amateurish acting and interesting if over-used sets. The story concerns a village near the edge of the titular swamp, haunted by the ghost of a man innocent of the crime for which he was hanged - the murder was committed by the ferryman, who seems to run a thriving business for such a little community. Throughout the 59 minute running time we are treated to countless toings and froings across the ferry, yet Director Frank Wisbar conjures up a haunting and often creepy menace. Rosemary LaPlanche makes a refreshing change from the usual scream-at-everything 40s horror heroines, taking over her late grandfather's ferry with aplomb, and proving the prime mover of the plot. Blake Edwards, later to direct The Pink Panther series of films(!) is her paramour, and it turns out he is the one who needs saving from the ghost.Charles Middleton - Ming The Merciless from the Flash Gordon serials - turns up here as the spectral strangler, in a simple yet effective make-up - his eye sockets are blackened and camera lens gauze gives him an unworldly quality.There are flaws, of course, yet much of them are charming in their naivety, and this is certainly a superior production than many better known horrors of the period. Strangler From The Swamp will never be favourably compared to Val Lewton's films, yet it's well worth a watch.

It's really a pity more people haven't seen this little number from PRC - it has a tight story, good acting, amazing atmosphere, just everything so many of their features lack. The joke was, and in some cases remains, that PRC stood for Pretty Rank Crap (actually Producers Releasing Corporation). They kept Bela Lugosi from going hungry and delivered quite a list of entertainingly awful crud - I mean, they made Monogram look like MGM! Generally considered the studio where name actors went to pick up enough cash to pay off their bar tabs (which explains the presence of otherwise outstanding actors like J. Carroll Naish, John Carradine and George Zucco), by the law of averages, they were bound to hit the mark, once in a great while.And here, they do. Despite, or perhaps because of the obvious sound-stage set, the film has an atmosphere of unreality, a similar effect attained in "City of the Dead" (1960) by the same means. Both films have an almost Lovecraftian sense of foreboding. The core of the film's success can be attributed to the "Strangler" himself, character actor Charles Middleton, perhaps most known for his turns as Ming the Merciless in the "Flash Gordon" serials and his menace of Laurel & Hardy in several of their shorts and features.Please understand - "Strangler from the Swamp" is never going to give Hitchcock or the Val Lewton horror pictures a run for their money, but all in all, it is still a very satisfying film.And yes, that Blake Edwards is THAT Blake Edwards!