Swamp Thing is a 1982 horror film written and directed by Wes Craven

Wes Craven

Wesley Earl "Wes" Craven is an American actor, film director, writer, producer, perhaps best known as the director of many horror films, particularly slasher films, including the famed A Nightmare on Elm Street and Wes Craven's New Nightmare, featuring the iconic Freddy Krueger character, the...

. It tells the story of scientist Alec Holland (Ray Wise

Ray Wise

Raymond Nicolas "Ray" Wise is an American actor, known for his roles as Leland Palmer in Twin Peaks, as Leon C. Nash, right-hand henchman to villain Clarence Boddicker in the science fiction classic RoboCop, and recently as the Devil in the CW television series Reaper.-Life and career:Wise was...

) who becomes transformed into the monster Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing, a fictional character, is a plant elemental in the created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century . The Swamp Thing then returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in...

 (Dick Durock

Dick Durock

Richard "Dick" Durock was an American stuntman and actor who has appeared in over eighty films and over seven hundred television episodes.- Biography :...

) through laboratory sabotage orchestrated by the evil Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan). Later, he helps out a woman named Alice (Adrienne Barbeau

Adrienne Barbeau

Adrienne Jo Barbeau is an American actress and the author of three books. Barbeau came to prominence in the 1970s as Broadway's original Rizzo in the musical Grease, and as Carol Traynor, the divorced daughter of Maude Findlay in the sitcom Maude...

) and battles the man who made responsible for it all, the ruthless Arcane. The film was based on the DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 (later Vertigo Comics) character of the same name

Swamp Thing

Swamp Thing, a fictional character, is a plant elemental in the created by Len Wein and Berni Wrightson. He first appeared in House of Secrets #92 in a stand-alone horror story set in the early 20th century . The Swamp Thing then returned in his own series, set in the contemporary world and in...

 by Len Wein

Len Wein

Len Wein is an American comic book writer and editor best known for co-creating DC Comics' Swamp Thing and Marvel Comics' Wolverine, and for helping revive the Marvel superhero team the X-Men...

 and Bernie Wrightson

Bernie Wrightson

Bernie "Berni" Wrightson is an American artist known for his horror illustrations and comic books.-Biography:...

.

Plot

In the swamps of Louisiana, Dr. Alec Holland works with his sister Linda on a top-secret bio-engineering project to create a plant/human hybrid capable of thriving in extreme environments. Government agent Alice Cable arrives just as Holland makes a major breakthrough, and begins to develop feelings for him. However, a paramilitary group led by the evil Dr. Arcane, who is obsessed with immortality, kills Linda while trying to steal the formula. Dr. Holland is covered in chemicals, caught on fire, and runs screaming in the swamp, presumably to die, but returns as a monstrously mutated plant creature. As the Swamp Thing, Holland battles Arcane's forces to protect Cable, and eventually takes on the mad doctor himself, who has also mutated from his incomplete understanding of the formula.

Production

Filming occurred primarily on location in Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston, South Carolina

Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...

, and nearby Johns Island

Johns Island, South Carolina

Johns Island, also spelled John's Island, is the largest island in the U.S. State of South Carolina. It is one of the many Sea Islands along the coast of South Carolina.-Background:...

, South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

.

Response

Author John Kenneth Muir

John Kenneth Muir

John Kenneth Muir is an American literary critic. He has written twenty-one reference books in the fields of film and television, with a particular accent on the horror and science fiction genres....

 notes that Swamp Thing differs in many respects from Craven's usual work, in that Craven's intent was to show the major Hollywood studios that he could handle action, stunts and major stars, Craven substituted his usual focus on the problems of the family and society for pure entertainment. Nevertheless, Muir points out, some of Craven's usual themes and images do appear in Swamp Thing. For example, as in The Last House on the Left

The Last House on the Left (1972 film)

The Last House on the Left is a 1972 horror film written and directed by Wes Craven and produced by Sean S. Cunningham.The story is inspired by the 1960 Swedish film The Virgin Spring, directed by Ingmar Bergman, which in turn is based on the 13th century Swedish ballad "Töres döttrar i Wänge"...

(1972), and The Hills Have Eyes

The Hills Have Eyes (1977 film)

The Hills Have Eyes is a 1977 American horror film directed by Wes Craven and starring Susan Lanier, Michael Berryman, and Dee Wallace. It is about a family on a road trip who become stranded in the Nevada desert, and are hunted by a clan of deformed cannibals in the surrounding hills...

(1977), Craven shows a close connection between the landscape and his characters. The film was adapted in comics form as Swamp Thing Annual #1. The character later reported disliking the film.

Reception

The film received generally average to positive reviews from critics, currently holding 69% on Rotten Tomatoes.

Remake

In 2009 it was announced that Joel Silver

Joel Silver

Joel Silver is an American Hollywood film producer, co-creator of the sport of Ultimate, co-founder of Dark Castle Entertainment and owner of Silver Pictures.-Life and career:...

 will produce the remake of the movie. The story is written by Akiva Goldsman

Akiva Goldsman

Akiva J. Goldsman from Walker Valley, New York is an American screenwriter and film producer. He received an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for the 2001 film, A Beautiful Mind, which also won the Oscar for Best Picture....

. In April 2010 Vincenzo Natali

Vincenzo Natali

Vincenzo Natali is an American-Canadian film director and screenwriter, best known for writing and directing science fiction films such as Cube, Nothing and Splice.-Early life:...

was confirmed to direct the 3-D remake of the film.