Hooptober X: The Devil Made Me Do It
#17: 5 Films from De Palma, Wes Craven, Ken Russell, Hitchcock and/or Morehead & Benson (3)
Tubi

I distinctly remember a Swamp Thing PSA about littering when I was a kid. Hadn't thought of it for decades but it all came back to me when I watched this. I also have vague memories of watching a Swamp Thing TV show in the 90s. Swamp Thing was a pretty big deal back in the day! I definitely saw this movie as a little kid but didn't remember a lot.

I love that this is a rubber suit monster movie. We need more dark rubber suit monster movies like this, PSYCHO GOREMAN, MECHANICAL VIOLATER HAKAIDER, etc. In the comics Swamp Thing has awesome powers like the ability to control all plant life and transfer his mind anywhere there are plants, but I'm guessing they didn't have much of a budget so this was just about a rubber suit guy throwing dudes around, and that's OK! Since this is an origin story it stands to reason that Swamp Thing hadn't learned how to do all that fancy stuff yet.

Louis Jordan hams it up as Arcane, who's some terrorist leader/supervillain scientist who's obsessed with stealing this new Swamp Thing-inducing serum. He feels like he was ripped right out of a Bond movie. His mercenaries/goons all wore different shades of camo, which I guess goes back to the whole budget thing. Arcane drinks the super serum thinking it'd make him more of a genius, but instead it turned him into some kind of armored boar man, so he grabbed a sword to fight Swamp Thing. Sure, why not!