Marketic It's no definitive masterpiece but it's damn close.

Ava-Grace Willis Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Erica Derrick By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Kirandeep Yoder The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

kapelusznik18 ***SPOILERS*** Filmed in the muddy alligator infested swamps of Uncertain Texas the film has to do with an oil drilling crew header by handsome geologist Barry Rogers, John Agar, that leads to disaster. Not in not finding oil but running into the crazed and obsessive Dr. Simond Trent played by Jeff Alexander who looks like a combination of Gonzo journalist Hunter Tompson and psycho and murderous evangelist Jim Jones. It turns out that Dr. Trent is trying to reverse the evolutionary process by turning man, or in some cases women, back to his primeval state of fishes & amphibians. Things soon get so out of hand that the local natives in the area that Dr. Trent experiments with revolt against him but in the end it's his pet alligators, that he keeps in his swimming pool, that eventually does him in.Even though what seems like a very reluctant John Agar, in having anything to do with this mess, is the star he spends most of his time on screen sleeping as if he's trying to distance himself from this turkey of a movie. It's Jeff Alexander as the crazed Dr. Trent who really runs the show as well as runs everyone in the movie nuts with his plans to turns them into fish and lizards that in the end, to everyones relief, backfires on him. It's when he finally succeeds in his experiments when he turns the organizer of this crazy expedition Bernda Simmions, Shirley McLain, into a fish-woman she in seeing what Dr. Trent did to her turns against him.There's also Dr. Trent's not so loyal assistant who never liked the guy in the first place Valjean, Ted Mitchell,who starts up a revolt by the local and voodoo worshiping population that really leads to nowhere.In that their so spaced out and on drugs that they can barley stand on their feet. It's Brenda the fish-women who finally puts an end to Dr. Trent's insanity by dumping him into his alligator infested swimming pool with them having him for lunch with Brenda, after seeing how she looked in the mirror, jumping in to join him!

kevin olzak 1966's "Curse of the Swamp Creature" was John Agar's second of three titles for notorious Texas filmmaker Larry Buchanan, and a comedown even after "Zontar the Thing from Venus" (1968's "Hell Raiders" was the last, a WW2 feature!). He proved to be a very active scientist running and bicycling around in "Zontar," while here he gets to relax and do a great deal of smoking, as do most of the other characters (surely an easy paycheck that any actor wouldn't mind!). Not a prolific genre actress (apart from 1965's "Space Monster"), the lovely Francine York does what she can as the imprisoned spouse of crazed scientist Jeff Alexander, also from "Zontar," who easily dominates the film in an over-the-top performance that simply no actor could have avoided (granted, there was no competition). Were it not for Alexander, conducting evolution experiments to turn mammals into reptiles, things would have been even worse than they already are, chewing the scenery in similar fashion as the wicked janitor in 1973's "Horror High" (aka "Twisted Brain"). One very busy actor is Buchanan regular Bill Thurman, doing double duty as the murdered oil man and as the so-called Swamp Creature; it's difficult to accept the scrawny Cal Duggan getting the upper hand over the burly, imposing Thurman, who incredibly, has even less to do as the "fish man" (the doctor's description). The same green mask with ping pong ball eyes would later pop up in both 1967's "Creature of Destruction" (played by Byron Lord) and 1969's "It's Alive!" (played by Thurman again). Say what you want about director Larry Buchanan, his 8 Azalea films (five of which were remade from old AIP scripts he received to shoot in color) have a distinctive look that defines them, using a stock company of local performers and the same recycled Ronald Stein music cues. One is hard pressed to defend them on any level, but they are certainly unique; just try to explain that to someone too young to have seen them on late night broadcasts such as Pittsburgh's Chiller Theater, which aired the film four times from 1968-72. While not officially a remake of an earlier AIP 50s title, the 'original' Tony Houston screenplay is an almost exact replica of the 1956 Alex Gordon production "Voodoo Woman," which also featured a mad scientist (Tom Conway rather than Jeff Alexander), his imprisoned wife (Mary Ellen Kaye rather than Francine York), and a party searching for wealth in the jungle, led by a scheming seductress (Marla English rather than Shirley McLine) and a no nonsense guide (Mike Connors rather than John Agar). Quite a wonderful lady, the still breathtaking Francine was recently seen in fine form in a May 2012 episode of HOT IN CLEVELAND.

MartinHafer When I looked at the DVD, there were two strong indicators that the film would be of the absolute worst quality. First, it was made in the 1960s and starred John Agar. In the 60s, Agar had slid from appearing in A-films and was appearing in a steady stream of z-grade films. Second, the film was made by one of the most inept directors in history--Larry Buchanan. Other Buchanan 'masterpieces' include the horrendous MARS NEEDS WOMEN, ZONTAR: THE THING FROM VENUS as well as IN THE YEAR 2889--films that even Ed Wood would have been embarrassed to have made!! And, while it did turn out that CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE is a horrible film in almost every way, it still is better than these three other films!! The film begins with an oil prospector being murdered by staff at a sleazy hotel near the bayou. When another man from the same oil company (John Agar) comes to this tiny town looking for the dead man, the idiots who killed the guy decide to have on of them (a lady) pose as the dead man's wife--and say that she, too, is a scientist and will be carrying out her husband's work, as he's "unable to be here". This story makes no sense at all and why they would concoct such a tale is never all that clear, though at one point they say that they want to get Agar to show they where the oil is so they can claim it for themselves. Now considering that they would have to kill two oil company workers and then claim to have found the oil themselves makes it seem 100% certain that they would get caught.At the same time, in a separate story, an insane researcher is kidnapping folks and doing experiments to turn them into swamp monsters. When the experiments fail, he tosses the victims into a swimming pool filled with gators. Eventually Agar and his group meet up with the insane scientist in the swamp. Not surprisingly, bad things soon begin to happen! At many points in the film, the sound effects are either missing or badly mistimed. In one case, a guy is supposed to receive a phone call but the phone never rings...and then he picks it up anyway! Another time, the doctor's wife yells but the scream and the mouth opening and closing for the scream are several seconds out of synchronization! At other points, stock footage (particularly of the alligators) is terribly integrated into the film--and the gators make absolutely no sounds at all--even as they thrash about in the water. It's also funny, because they supposedly live in this small swimming pool but some of the clips show it is a larger sized lake filled with dirty brown water.As for the acting, it's bad but I've seen a lot worse. The only seriously bad actor is the doctor--he over-annunciates and over-acts throughout. Perhaps Jeff Alexander improved in later years, but here he is the worst of the main characters--though none of them could be confused for real actors. Amazingly, the acting might just be the strongest feature in this film! The direction is lackluster and often seemingly non-existent. Some of the shots are poorly framed and look more like home movies than something anyone would actually pay to see. I am not sure if Buchanan is also responsible for how grainy the film looks--this could just be due to the ravages of time and a bad DVD print. But, considering his other films I'm inclined to assume the worst as far as his directorial skills are concerned.By the way, the swamp creature of the title only begins to make its first appearance at the 74 minute mark--and then only a brief glimpse of its eyes. The actual creature in all its glory appears only in the final four minutes of the movie--and then mostly in distant shots or for a second or two at a time! With the words 'swamp creature' in the title, I sure was expecting to see a heck of a lot more!! However, I must honestly add that for a grade-z level swamp monster, there are actually one or two I've seen that wear much, much worse costumes (such as in THE HORROR OF PARTY BEACH and its swamp man who has a bunch of hot dogs sticking out of its mouth).By the way, I watched an Ed Wood film earlier the same evening that I saw this. The Ed Wood film (THE VIOLENT YEARS) was 1000 times better...and yet, it too, also sucked! Overall, for technical merit, story, direction and acting, this one earns a 1 but it is strangely watchable for bad movie buffs. It is simply so bad that it's funny--as are all the Buchanan films that I have seen.

Michael_Elliott 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.