There's a few notable names among the cast this time though - Dick Durock and Louis Jourdan returned as the Swamp Thing and Anton Arcane respectively while we also get Dynasty's Heather "Schwing!" Locklear along for the ride as Arcane's stepdaughter Abigail and Sarah Douglas as his assistant Lana. Douglas really does have quite some previous form on this blog - she's previously appeared in both of the first two Superman films as Ursa and the evil Queen Taramis in Conan the Destroyer! Blimey, that's almost Chris Evans/Ryan Reynolds levels of reoccurrence in comic book tie-ins.
The film starts with a group of cadets going on a trek through the swamp. Hopelessly lost, they start squabbling and eventually decide to head for home. However, when one of them stops off to relieve himself, he's grabbed by something that looks like a giant purple prawn man which promptly dispatches one of the other squaddies as well. The other three split up with two of them encountering a bunch of mercenaries who shoot them with stun guns and the other one ends up cornered by the beast only to have his arse saved by the Swamp Thing who shambles out of a clearing and throws crayfish boy into the bayou.
We cut to a flower shop in Los Angeles where Abigail Arcane works as a florist. Apparently she's been having issues with her karma or something and her wellbeing guru has advised her to go and track down her long lost stepdad to talk them over meaning she's off to Louisiana on vacation.
...and that stepdad turns out to be Arsene Wenger's evil twin himself, Anton Arcane. It isn't explained how he's a) returned from the dead and b) changed back to his human form from the evil boar monster that he got turned into at the end of the first film (though we'll later discover that some of his minions discovered him in the swamp, revived him and drained the toxic potion from his system) but he's moved back into his old mansion and is running a genetics lab splicing people's genes to create weird new creatures. If you ever saw the Mutants episode of the Mighty Boosh ("Look at my eyes don't look at my face!") then it's basically that minus the laughs. Helping him are his two scientists Dr Lana Zurrell and Dr Rochelle plus his two bodyguards Poinsettia and Gunn who run his security guard team.
Meanwhile, out in the swamps we see two ten year old kids Omar and Darryl sneaking into one of them's house while the parents are out to watch MTV and look at porno mags. Eh, standard I guess. However, prawn monster turns up at their house and tries to eat them only for Swamp Thing to turn up and run him off amid a load of pyrotechnics. Omar and Darryl turn up throughout the film trying to photograph the Swamp Thing but their sequences are so badly acted and have so little bearing on the rest of the film that it doesn't seem worth mentioning them.
Abbie meanwhile has arrived at Arcane Towers to be greeted by her stepdad who acts as if he's pleased to see her. In truth he is...but only because he needs a sample of her blood to combine with his and counter the rapid aging that was a side effect of his resurrection! He does this by presenting her with a ring which had previously belonged to her late mother - as it's sharp she ends up cutting herself and Lana takes the bandage to get a sample of her blood.
Suspecting that something's up (blimey, evidently not as much of an airhead as she looks and acts), Abbie decides to go for a night-time walk in the swamp (on the other hand...). Wandering into one of the swamp villages, she encounters two stereotype rednecks who attempt to attack her before the Swamp Thing comes to her rescue and points her back in the right direction, promising he'll be there to look out for her if Arcane Sr tries any funny business.
However, on her way back, Abbie is kidnapped by Arcane's militia. Swamp Thing attempts to rescue her but gets blown up when one of the soldiers throws a grenade at him! Clearly Arcane is in "no messing" mode after his last encounter with the Swamp Thing!
Back at the lab, Abbie is put in a holding cell but ends up being released by Lana who has discovered from eavesdropping in on a conversation between Rochelle and Anton that the former is planning to drain her blood to help with one of his transfusions. Lana duly gets her revenge on Rochelle by injecting him with one of his own mutating needles and throwing him in a holding cell. Meanwhile, in one of the weirder sequences in the film, Swamp Thing has reformed as a pile of goop in the swamp and flows into the Arcane mansion through the water pipes!
He then re-emerges in the bath that Lana was running before she got distracted by Abbie. Clearly while the first Swamp Thing film saved the ridiculously silly stuff for the final fight sequence, here we're going full bore loony right from the word go...
Swamp Thing runs into Abbie in the hallway, beating up two guards who try to apprehend her and the pair make their getaway in a car with Arcane's footsoldiers firing mortars at them - cue lots of gratuitous (and decidedly unconvincing) explosions...
Safely in the swamp, Abbie reveals that she's developed feelings for the Swamp Thing and the pair end up eating a hallucinogenic tuber from the Thing's body which makes them both imagine that Swampy has reverted back to being Alec Holland so the pair of them can have sex. Um...weird...
However, Swamp Thing gets distracted when Omar and Darryl, patrolling the woods looking for the creature to take a photo, are attacked by Gunn and some of Arcane's militia leaving Abbie as easy pickings for Poinsettia to kidnap. D'oh...
Abbie is taken back to the lab where Lana has reluctantly agreed to assist Anton in performing the Keef Richards style blood transfusion to replace his blood with hers. The experiment is complete and Anton is revitalised while Abbie is dead. However, Lana has also snuck some of the mutating serum into the mix causing Anton to grow leaves from his hand. Enraged, he shoots her dead for betraying him.
Swamp Thing finally shows up and sets about wrecking the lab, first defeating the creature that Rochelle has mutated into (essentially he looks like the Mekon from Dan Dare now) and then offing Gunn by stuffing a grenade down his trousers! Ouch! The resultant explosion causes the lab to blow and Arcane is left trapped under a pillar as the building collapses around him, presumably killing him properly this time as Swamp Thing escapes with Abbie's body.
Back at the swamp, Swamp Thing uses his resurrection powers to bring Abbie back to life who asks if she can stay here and become his wife. He agrees and so woman and plant live happily ever after. The end.
I remember many years ago, I accidentally on purpose lent a friend a truly dreadful B-movie DVD that I couldn't get rid of called "Scarecrow Killer" then repeatedly forgot to ask for it back. I remember asking him many months later what he thought of the film and his reply was "Well I normally like really bad horror B-movies. But that one went TOO F**KING FAR!" That's kind of how I feel having watched "The Return Of Swamp Thing". Okay, going on the evidence of the first film we weren't going to get a classic but there really is nothing worse than a horror movie that tries for the goofball approach only for all the jokes to comprehensively miss and just leaves you shaking your head wondering why people bothered. Yes I know it's meant to be unashamedly low rent and cheesy but this film is way too daft to be scary and just isn't funny either so it just kind of falls straight through the middle into nothingness.
Unsurprisingly, nobody's attempted to make a Swamp Thing 3 to date and that's probably for the best. However, the early '90s did see a Swamp Thing TV series commissioned in the States, again starring Dick Durock in the title role. Despite poor reviews it did end up being something of a cult classic and ran for three series. I may track it down one of these days if I can be arsed with it but after watching this film I think it's somewhat unlikely. As for the film? I wish I could say "so bad it's good" but I think "so bad it's awful" would probably be more accurate. With this, "Superman 4" and "Supergirl", I think it's safe to say the quality of the stuff we've been covering on DC Saturdays really has troughed in recent weeks. Hopefully something's gonna come along soon to change all that...
FINAL RATING: 👾👾 (2/10)
CURRENT DC FILM TABLE
1. Superman (1978) (8/10)
2. Superman 2 (1980) (8/10)
3. Batman (1966) (8/10)
4. Superman 3 (1983) (5/10)
5. Swamp Thing (1982) (5/10)
6. The New Wonder Woman (1975) (5/10)
7. Superman and the Mole Men (1951) (5/10)
8. Wonder Woman (1974) (3/10)
9. The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) (2/10)
10. Superman 4 - The Quest For Peace (1987) (2/10)
11. Supergirl (1984) (2/10)
NEXT WEEK: Batman returns to the big screen after a 23 year absence. And hopefully gives DC Saturday a much-needed quality spike...
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