Curse of the Swamp Creature is a 1968 American-made for television horror science fiction film directed by Larry Buchanan. Which to say is actually one of Z-grade schlockmeister Larry Buchanan’s better movies. . Although Buchanan was producing low-budget 16mm color remakes of American International Pictures sci-fi movies for television distribution around this time, he claimed this was an original even though it bears more than a few striking similarities to the 1957 AIP film Voodoo Woman. <br /><br />Plot: Deep in the rural swamps of Texas, the reclusive and ruthless wife-abusing mad scientist Dr. Simond Trent is conducting experiments in his laboratory on the local impoverished voodoo-worshiping black "natives" in an attempt to discover the secret to reversing evolution, feeding the failures to the alligators he keeps in his covered outdoor swimming pool. When a party of oil surveyors comes upon his isolated yet strangely suburban-style home, he decides to take the final step and turn the duplicitous female leader of the expedition into a grotesque and virtually indestructible amphibious "Fish Man" so that he can take his revenge upon the world. <br /><br />Despite showing the monster very prominently on the posters of the film, which bill it as an "underwater terror from another age," other than brief, partial glimpses down into the mist-filled glass tank where its body is being modified from its original human form, the titular creature (with its burly physique, bald head, Spock-like ears and protruding slit-pupiled, ping pong ball-shaped eyes) only appears at the climax of the film for less than five minutes before meeting its demise, and no scenes take place underwater. <br /><br />Credits: <br />John Agar as Barry Rogers <br />Francine York as Pat Trent <br />Jeff Alexander as Dr. Simond Trent <br />Shirley McLaine as Brenda Simmons (aka "Mrs. Brenda West") <br />Cal Duggan as Ritchie <br />Charles McLine as Rabbit Simms <br />Bill McGhee as Tracker <br />Ted Mitchell as Valjean <br />Roger Ready as Frenchie <br />Bill Thurman as Driscoll West / The Swamp Creature <br />Tony Huston as Tom <br />Gayle Johnson as Mura <br />Michael Tolden as Elderly Father <br />Annabelle Weenick as Hotel clerk <br />Patrick Cranshaw as Pilot <br />J.V. Lee as Brother <br />Naomi Bruton as Marcie
