It came from the deep… a monster of the swamps, hiding away for his next victim. Lurking and waiting, hiding its identity. No it’s not the creature from the Black Lagoon. No it’s not Victor Crowley either. No.

It’s the curse of the Swamp Creature. Obviously.

Set in the swamps of Texas, a mad scientist, Dr Simond Trent, is spending his days abusing his wife and doing what all mad scientists seem to do – create really useless things. He is trying to reverse evolution. He seems to believe that man comes from reptiles or maybe he doesn’t, as this part makes no sense nor does the film take two seconds to explain itself. He is using the local “voodoo swamp people” as his test subject, seemingly trying to turn them into Aqua Man.

None of his experiments seem to go as planned as he is seen often feeding bodies to the alligators living in his pool. Much like this movie should have.

In a non-swamp part of Texas, a woman with the sultry name of Brenda and her boyfriend scheme to take the maps off an oil surveyor to find the oil before he does. But the boyfriend is caught snooping and there’s quite the tussle. The poor visitor is murdered, but what does that matter? No really. What does it matter? Nothing ever comes of it. It isn’t even mentioned for the rest of the movie besides the fact that they keep calling Brenda, the apparent ‘book keeper’, as though she were his wife – Mrs Smith.

The murdering couple team up with their victim’s surveying team and head out into the swamps to look for oil. The unsuspecting group bumps into Dr Simond and are invited in to his home. Here is where the group meets the doctor’s super foxy wife. How he ever ended up with her seems to even befuddle the visitors, but it is unlikely that anyone would ever understand.

One of the interns disappears, only to be discovered in the laboratory in a sort of semi-reptile phase. When the poor doctor’s wife sees the poor boy, she decides to take matters into her own hands by killing the experiment. When her husband sees what she has done, he angrily shoves her in a closet because women are just the worst.

The doctor then proceeds to go completely mad, turning Mrs West (does the film remember she’s not actually Mrs West?) into one of his creatures – this time he succeeds in creating what he calls his “beautiful, indestructible fish man”. What is revealed looks nothing like an actual creature from the swamps. This monster looks more like something that was radioactively mutated somewhere in the mountains. Not a scale or webbed toe to be seen. Instead there are this bulbous ping-pong eyes and an unfortunate underbite.

Disappointingly, the viewers don’t get to see much of this titular character. She’s mysterious, and is glimpsed so sparsely that it isn’t even sure if she exists or if everyone in Texas is really just nuts. Most of what is seen of any other experiment is just a really dramatic shot of a webbed hand.

But selling the creature so much on the poster, just to have it be so bashful seems a bit weird. Especially selling her as a “monster from another age” is a bit misleading considering she really isn’t from another age. Just from some creep’s basement lab. The poor creature’s design is just so bizarre. But whatever she’s using to get such fierce eyebrows, I’m interested. Share your secret, oh Swamp Creature!

In the end, the creature feeds the doctor and herself to the gators. Does she do it out of shame that she’s not a super foxy lady anymore (which is really the only way to be a successful woman)? Or did she do it because she remembered that her boyfriend killed someone in the beginning of the movie. RIP Mr West.

This 1966 horror film was directed by self-proclaimed “schlockmeister” Larry Buchanan, who directed films such as The Loch Ness Horror and The Naked Witch. His schlock skills are so strong, than none of the number of victims have show any blood. I do love when a stabbing is spotless. Less mess to clean, am I right?

The movie is just so cringe-worthy. But as it so happens in the 60s, sexism and racism really did run rampant. Who knew everyone from African-decent was still practicing voodoo? Watching it is painful. So painful it makes one fall down to their knees praying that the Satellite of Love will come down and save the day with quips and song.

The editing is appalling, sometimes not even letting the actors lines finish before cutting to the next scene. And even though several members of the party are asleep, it is still clearly daylight during the exterior scenes. Oh and this is important: there is quicksand. This movie throws in so many cliches that quicksand has even made an appearance.

This film is bad. But fun bad? Maybe not so much. It is quite dull to get through. I kept finding myself wishing it would be over every ten minutes. While the dialogue can be quite laughably funny, there isn’t enough time with the monster. Even for those who love a good cheesy monster flick, this might be a difficult one to swallow.