Swamp Thing (1982)

        Wes Craven's DC comics adaptation from his GODZILLA GOES TO PARIS phase (the period when he was so desperate for a movie he would have directed that if offered it, or so he told Fangoria) gets an uncut Blu-ray release in the UK from 88 Films.

And why, you may ask if you weren't around at the time, should something as innocuous as SWAMP THING have ever been cut? Well there are a few scenes of female toplessness that the US censors felt their audiences had to be protected from back in the early 1980s. Those of us living in Europe were considered hardier to such things and so it's the 93 minute European version you get here.

Made well before comic book movies became in and huge and had massive budgets thrown at them, SWAMP THING heralds from those dark days when comic book movies were treated with a fair amount of disdain and a frequently slapdash approach to their production. SWAMP THING suffers from a poor script that's basically: here's our hero, here's our villain, oh no the hero's been turned into a monster, the woman he loves is placed in peril three times by the same villain & he has to save her. 

This sounds rather better than it is. Some of the acting is extremely ropey because again, SWAMP THING is from the days where as long as you had secured a couple of good actors for the leads the bit parts seemed to be made up of friends, relatives and whoever was hanging around. Adrienne Barbeau is good as the put upon heroine, and this is probably the best role she ever had not having to play terrible jazz in a lighthouse while being besieged by ghost pirates. Louis Jourdan looks as if he's not quite sure why he's in this but gives every line his all. Ray Wise, as the pre-swamp thing Dr Alec Holland is the only one who really gets the comic book feel spot on in his performance but he's understandably not around for very long. Oh, and Harry Manfredini did the music so it's only appropriate that someone wields a machete during a chase at one point as it does all sound a bit FRIDAY THE 13TH.

88 Films' Blu-ray looks very good with some slight drops in quality occasionally (and not in the scenes that were cut, curiously). There's a Wes Craven commentary track, an interview with production designer Robb Wilson King, and Kim Newman provides an overview of Craven's career. If you get in early the limited edition comes with a slipcase, an A3 fold out version of the movie poster and a nice little booklet filled with stills, lobby card reproductions and poster art.

Wes Craven's SWAMP THING is out on Blu-ray from 88 Films on Monday 25th March 2019