Don't let the varying covers of this movie trick you into thinking that there is some interesting viewing ahead, as I can assure you there is nothing remotely interesting about this mess.Movie starts with some kind of prologue that occurred 17 years ago. A young girl running from something in the swamp, runs into a man who turns out to be a deranged killer. The then local sheriff and some men track him down and instead of bringing him to justice they beat him within an inch of his life and then throw him in the bog.Flash forward to "today", and there is another young girl, albeit sightly older & more developed, running through the swamp who then gets dragged to her death and is found floating up in the marshes. The townspeople all suspect the former sheriff, who's now an old man so they set about bringing him to justice.Enter the old man's estranged daughter; lured back to the town under the false pretence that he was dying. Once back into town the story of him being a suspected murderer is revealed and she's there in the hope to help catch him.Long story short, the man who tricked the daughter to come back to town turns out to be the creature responsible and after a few ridiculous deaths and seemingly endless chases through the same part of swampland, father and daughter reconcile, creature killed and everybody lives happily ever after. The reason all this happened is that the swamp devil has been hunting down all those who "wronged" him and making their deaths look like accidents or suicides, plus by his own admission he just loves killing.The worst thing about this is not the cheap CGI, the boring deaths, the highly derivative story or the poor acting, what really got under my skin is that the identity of the killer/creature is actually given away within the first 5 minutes and then repeatedly throughout the movie. For some stupid reason the killer thrown into the bog 17 years ago simply didn't die, he instead bonded with the bog itself and became the swamp devil. Sure why not. That wouldn't be so bad except that he can somehow change from being human to vine creature at will, yet he leaves inexplicable muddy footprints wherever he seems to go and no one takes any notice. In addition he seems to be bound by the city limits, never being able to cross the county boundary line. Let's not forget the constant attempts at shooting at this thing which never works, (it is largely a plant after all) but they keep trying and of course failing and you wonder why they don't try fire, it is as I said largely a plant. So how did they manage to kill this thing? They drive to the edge of town with the creature on the back of a pick-up truck where it jumps off just before they cross the line. It then stood around like an idiot knowing that certain death was a mere 2 feet away until the old man in a car ploughed into it and threw it across the county line where it exploded in an shower of dirt, roots and vines. And like all cheap and nasty monster movies, going all the way back to the 50's, there is some kind of epilogue where the woman who owns the diner goes into the swamp and then lovingly caresses a skeletal hand shaped vine coming up out of the bog indicating that the "horror is due for a return". All I can say is, I certainly hope not!

Bad, and not even close to good bad. Bruce Dern, a good actor, is unfortunately trapped in this nonsense of a film. It's as if the entire story was made up by a ten year old. The CGI stick man monster is cartoon-like. All of the actors, including Dern, look embarrassed being involved with such drivel. Worst of all the reason for the stick monster's existence, and his demise, seem to have been given minimal thought, and the result is beyond ridiculous. This is one to be avoided at all costs. To put things in perspective, I would say that "Swamp Devil" is even worse that "Manticore", another preposterous Sci Fi Channel dud. ..... MERK

Swamp Devil was not a good movie, but it is not a terrible one either and it could have been much worse. It is decently shot, has some good scenery, has an eerie score and the cast are above average particularly from Bruce Dern and Nicholas Wright. However, the effects are very poor, often crude above all else and the transformation sequences are just as bad. The monster does lack any kind of menace, you know nothing about why it behaves like it does and it is over-used which dilutes any sense of tension. The dialogue is very clunky, while the story rarely does engage often coming across as predictable with no sense of tense atmosphere and any lack of suspense in any scenes featuring the monster and the characters are little more than underdeveloped cardboard cut-outs. All in all, could have been worse, but is lacking in a lot of areas. 4/10 Bethany Cox

What do actors do when they get old and they have bills to pay. In Bruce Dern's case, you make Swamp Devil.Dern adds a touch of class to an extremely low budget, low key "horror" movie, filmed in forest-y locations (not the sort of place where you would normally expect to find swamps, I felt), with a cast of several, and special effects which bring a whole new meaning to the word "special." Plotwise there is absolutely nothing exceptional here whatsoever. The very attractive but otherwise underwhelming Cindy Sampson, in the throes of being reconciled with her estranged (and wanted for murder) father Bruce Dern becomes involved with what turns out to be an unpleasant individual which passes itself off as human (and is exactly the person you expected even though you weren't supposed to expect it was him) and, the rest of the time, as a bad CGI-d bloke made of brambles.The horror isn't very horrifying, the suspense isn't very suspenseful, and the whole thing is just about an adequate time passer, but only because of Dern's class and Sampson's status as eye candy.