i want you to hit me as hard as you can when you think of superheroes you tend to think of some
kind of vulcanized rubber or tight spandex costume right and someone that's off saving civilians in a
big metropolitan city but what about a superhero that is a humanoid combination of plant matter
and instead of a sprawling city he resides in a sprawling swamp
ready to take on any bad guys that come into his territory not only that
but he's got insane strength and the ability to manipulate plants sign us up join us today as we
go over this unique and interesting creature of the marsh in dc revisited swamp thing
the character of swamp thing first appeared in comics in house of secrets number 92 in 1971.
if you're wondering how the creature got such a unique name creator len wine had trouble coming up
with a name for his creature from the swamp so he always referred to the project as the swamp thing
i'm working on he envisioned a character that protected his home and the environment in equal
measure and like any good superhero he also had a human alter ego dr alec holland see holland is
developing a biorestorative formula that can help save the world from starvation after an accident
turns holland into swamp thing he continues his mission to use nature to save humanity after the
success of richard donner's superman the question was asked would comics serve as a pipeline for
the movie industry thanks for watching dc films revisited if you enjoy our shows please subscribe
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video comes up now back to the show to be able to properly discuss the film's swamp thing from 1982
we first need to discuss producer michael uslan you may recognize that name from practically every
dc film ever made before usland was producing superhero films he was just a boy from new jersey
obsessed with comic books that obsession grew and grew to the point that he was teaching the
first ever accredited course on comic books at indiana university so to say that usually as a
fan of comics might just be understating things a bit having grown up on a darker version of batman
uslan was sick of the campy adam west betrayal being the prominent version
so using the money he'd earned teaching he bought the rights to batman as well as some other comic
book characters but he quickly decided that batman would need more time and money and
therefore couldn't be his first film so he focused on a lesser-known property about a man in a swamp
wes craven is often known for horror franchises a nightmare on elm street and scream
so he's not exactly someone you may immediately think of when it comes to a comic book movie
but what about a comic book movie with a lesser known character with rather supernatural origins
craven's feat had been pretty firmly planted in the horror world since his debut film
last house on the left he had fouled that up with the hills have eyes and yet he still yearned for
more already he was starting to gain a reputation as a filmmaker who went to the dark side of horror
and explored very intense themes refusing to be pigeonholed as solely a horror director
craven sought out to make an action movie that's when he received a call from michael usland
about swamp thing having grown up in a christian household that banned comic books
craven knew nothing of the character but after doing a deep dive into the world he was smitten
and agreed to tackle it with the sole caveat of making a purely entertaining movie he wanted to be
able to show that he had a lighter side and could create material for all audiences filming directly
after completing deadly blessing craven got to work on swamp thing i don't know where we are taro
this sure is in kansas this film was the epitome of low budget compared to superman's price tag of
55 million swamp thing was made for a mere 2.5 million that's right that's five percent of the
man of steel's entire budget to make a character that mostly lives in a swamp but superman had
the backing of warner brothers while swamp thing was with first time producer michael ooslin not
to mention the bond company that was responsible for the film's completion constantly forced craven
to cut scenes so that they would come in under budget west would later describe the situation as
not friendly and they were not helpful they just played the tough guys all the time
when it came to the casting of dr alec holland craven needed someone that he felt would be
able to properly emote under a ton of makeup ray wise took on the role and played it as his usual
charming self but given the role's large amount of stunt work dick durrock was cast as his stunt
devil when filming it became clear that ray wise and dick durack looked fundamentally different
when under the makeup so they decided that dick would be in the swamp thing costume full time and
rey would just act as his human form the only dangerous thing out there are those government
agents with their pop guns adrian barbeau plays magnum pi or sorry let's try that again
adrian barbeau plays abby cable cable is actually a combination of two characters from the comics
abby arcane who was the main villain's niece and matthew cable one of the heroes archvillains abby
is our main lead and really acts as the audience surrogate she quickly falls for holland and sets
up the love story at its core while barbeau hadn't yet gained her massive reputation in the
horror world she was still big enough to receive an offer for the part when she received the script
unsure of whether to even read it her husband john carpenter great filmmaker in his own right
suggested she'd give it a chance as he was a massive fan of craven she did and the rest is
history we need to take a moment to talk about the absurdity of the main villain anton arcane
played by louis jordan he works pretty well as the evil british bad guy he always seems to be
one step ahead of everyone and makes for a good villain but then he transforms into this what can
only be described as a cross-dressing scaly pigman emerges from a cocoon if you think that swamp
thing suffers from man and suit syndrome then you haven't seen anything yet craven certainly hadn't
forgotten his roots bringing david hess in as ferret the second in command to the big bad
hess had starred in craven's last house on the left in the very memorable role of krug
like his former role ferret is an eccentric that you can tell has bad intentions the moment
he appears on screen and he really proves that when he full-on kills this poor child
but thankfully swamp thing revives him so we're still at a solid zero for the child killing part
of this series thank god the story of swamp thing follows fairly close to the comic origins with dr
alec holland deep in the swamp researching a formula for extreme plant regeneration
the idea is to be able to rid the world of starvation through plants
but anton arcane also wants the formula and he attacks the research station to get it
what proceeds is a lot of death as well as holland being turned into the title character we spend the
rest of the time following abby cable as she tries to get what survived of holland's work
out of arcane's hands it's very simple but that's to be expected when you compare it to today's work
the practical effects here can seem a little dated but the detail work on swamp thing's face
is ridiculously impressive despite the very man in a rubber suit look of the rest of him
but the great look of the swamp thing came at a price dick durock constantly had to take breaks
the stuntman who played arcane ben bates completely fainted while filming in the
suit one day and it's no surprise because the production wanting to save money filmed all but
one scene in the swamps of south carolina this resulted in a very limited crew and resources
oh the film is filled to the brim with unintentionally funny moments with the
title characters super slow movement and awkward stunts being the real star here another moment
may also stand out while filming the owner of arkane's limo didn't want his vehicle fishtailed
in order to turn around quickly so what resulted was this absolutely absurd moment of the limo
stopping to turn around knowing the background what makes it even funnier is how the accompanying
suv almost hits the limo can't imagine the owner would have been too happy about that
once production finally wrapped the film was very quickly edited together when it came to the music
craven leaned into the horror of it all by bringing in friday the 13th composer harry
manfradini to score the film if you listen you can definitely hear some similarities between the two
all that's missing is the little
that kraven was wanting to distance himself from horror this collaboration is confusing the movie
actually ended up being quite the cult success however its goofiness and silly action almost
ruined craven's career while he was setting out to make a fun popcorn flick that featured a nice
love story at its core many saw it as a campy creature feature that lacked the interesting
themes of craven's past work craven went on a two-year drought where he had to sell his home
and even borrow money from friday the 13th co-creator sean cunningham
thankfully he bounced back by returning firmly to the horror genre and gaining legendary status
with a nightmare on elm street an idea he actually started formulating while on the swamp thing set
unlike their director the stars of the film wouldn't be hampered quite as much by the
film's lack of initial success adrian barbeau went on to become quite the scream queen with roles and
films like the fog escape from new york and creep show in 1983 louis jardin starred as kamal khan
the main bond villain in octopussy which would be the biggest role of his career
ray wise starred in a bevy of different films over the years even returning to the dc world
as commissioner gordon in the animated film batman the killing joke in 1989 producers
really decided to lean into the campiness and released a sequel return of swamp thing this
near parody featured the return of both dick durock as swamp thing and louis jardin heather
locklear stepped into the love interest role and ray wise was completely left out of the project
the unique parody approach worked because just one year later swamp thing the tv show debuted on
the usa network it featured duroc returning as the titular creature there's no abbey arcane character
in the series but anton arcane returned as the main villain this time played by mark lindsey
chapman the show lasted for three seasons and 72 episodes and was a staple of the sci-fi channel
in reruns like many of his superhero counterparts swamp thing received an animated series in 1991
unfortunately it didn't prove popular and the series was cancelled after only five episodes
when swamping was originally released on dvd a mistake was made when printing
and the international version was instead put on us discs this wouldn't be an issue
except that the international version had nudity barbo was shown bathing in the swamp full frontal
as well as some naked gypsies during the party scene towards the end
these are the main changes so it's pretty evident what they thought
european audiences liked funnily enough mgm tried to just get barbeau to sign off on the mistake to
avoid spending money on recalling the dvds but she refused citing the terms of her contract
while the film was released via shout factory on blu-ray
and has a ton of cool features the set is out of print and therefore fairly expensive to purchase
but there's a cheaper region b version from 88 films that doesn't break the bank
if you're desperate to have it but don't want to pay the absurd price the character was
brought back to the small screen for the streaming service dc universe and later cw with swamp thing
this derrick mirror starrer featured a much darker tone and was more in line with the comic material
written by alan moore which was the character's most popular run in the 80s adrian barbeau even
appeared on the show in a cameo role unfortunately the show was cancelled after only one season
despite positive reviews whether or not dc returns to the world of swamp thing is anyone's guess
with the recent failure of the tv show still lingering a movie seems less likely to manifest
if they do whether it takes inspiration from this film the tv show or the comic series it'll be
unlike any other comic book film join us next time as we go back into the world of superman
and richard pryor huh join us next time same movie time same movie channel
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