***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!

Deep in the rural swamps of Texas, Dr. Simond Trent (Jeff Alexander) is conducting experiments on the local swamp people in an attempt to discover the secret of evolution. When a party of oil surveyors comes upon his isolated laboratory he decides to take the final step and turn one of them into a grotesque amphibious creature.First of all, if you are watching this for the "swamp creature", you may be disappointed. It gets a very, very few minutes of screen time. But if you want to see the story of a scientist that thinks life evolves from a swamp, including people evolving from snakes rather than apes, then you might like this.The picture quality is a bit odd. Not good or bad, but hard to really define. At least we get science fiction legend John Agar.

What kind of mess do you get when you mix a mad scientist, his dim-witted but beautiful wife, angry local "swamp people" doing a voodoo dance, endless drumming almost throughout the film (the "taka-ta-taka, taka-ta-taka, taka-ta-taka" will drive you nuts), a geologist and some scheming locals, and of course a green bug-eyed monster? Why you wind up with Curse of the Swamp People, that's what! A geologist looking for oil in the swamps somewhere (Louisiana?) joins up with some locals intent on weaseling their way into a cut of the oil profits. They arrange for a guide to take them deep into the swamp where a mad scientist lives in a large house with a beautifully manicured lawn(!?). The mad scientist, Dr. Trent, is creating creatures by making some kind of alligator/fish-men.Unfortunately for him, most of his experiments have ended up in failure, but no problem - he disposes of them in his swimming pool full of hungry alligators.Dr. Trent is close to perfecting his methods when he is unexpectedly visited by the geologist et al. At the same time the locals get fed up with him picking off their neighbors for his experiments, and they resolve to use voodoo and 24-hour drum beats to get their revenge.As is typical for these low-budget creature-feature films of the 50s and 60s, you don't see the creature itself until almost the end of the movie, and it is completely laughable - it looks sort of like a less bulky version of Shrek, with bulging slit eyes.As bad as the film is, I found myself entertained. It's many gaffs are easy and frequently spotted, such as the electric meter on the side of the doctor's house (if he lives so far back in the boonies, then how is it that he is 'on the grid', and why doesn't the meter reader wind up as a part of his monster experiments?). I found it kind of fun to watch, so I felt generous and gave it a 3.

Remaking already cheapskate B pictures at a fraction of the original cost, it's a heck of a job. Curse of the Swamp Creature doesn't even have the dignity of solid source material that Larry Buchanan's other Azalea Pictures remakes had, being based on the already generally dismissed Voodoo Woman, but somehow he pulls off a bizarrely engagingly, dreamily enveloping good time. Opportunistic and murder happy thieves head off into the swamp with a geologist to nab his possible oil claim, but come across a mad scientist turning native swamp dwellers into reptilian mutants. It's as silly as it sounds, but Buchanan goes for hypnotic atmosphere rather than tight construction, focusing on his swampland setting and near omnipresent soundtrack, with pitter-patter of voodoo drums to lull anyone into the barely awake. The plot twitches along in fits and spurts instead of flowing, little bursts of action or talk to break the (literal and figurative) mist that is the films chief weapon, it's a good way of doing things because it allows for minimal dialogue and maximum strangeness. Things get a bit dull at times, buy there usually isn't too much separating the interesting stuff appearing, whether it be voodoo ceremonies (dancing, plastic skull) or laboratory shots (coloured liquid in jars, something strange in a dry ice coffin). Acting is fair but undistiguished as one might expect, with the most fun coming from Jeff Alexander as the mad scientist of the piece Dr. Simond Trent, expounding bonkers theories and setting about his work with tetchy impatience and casual meanness. Frequent Buchanan flier Tony Huston (who also wrote this one) appears as Dr. Trent's assistant, vainly trying for a bit of normality, fellow Buchanan regular Annabelle Weenick appears briefly as well while b movie veteran John Agar appears a little at sea as the heroic geologist stumbling upon the whole mess. We also have the lovely Francine York as Dr. Trent's sadly put upon wife, harried and sympathetic and Shirley McLine, beautiful, scheming and crooked. By and large a good set of turns though nothing to really set the screen on fire. I don't think many will be impressed to be honest, this seems to be one of those perennial cinematic "turkeys", I think its slowness and abstention from sanity or reality give it quite a good hook and indeed while watching I felt it slowly take grip, shonky strangeness creeping into my skull. In fact when things did come to a head, with monster revelation and the expected climax it was almost a let down after what had gone before. Still, it brought me chuckles and I guess that's a good note on which to end. Altogether then, a film for Buchanan fans only, but it is a pretty decent time if it's your sort of thing.