The Return of Swamp Thing takes place after the first one, where Swamp Thing is still doing his swamp thing, and Louis Jordan is back trying to make his own swamp thing like creatures. At the same time, his stepdaughter, played by Heather Locklear, comes to his swamp mansion to try to make amends. Back at her home in LA, she runs a plant shop, and has a thing for plants, so when she gets saved by Swamp Thing after a nightly stroll brings her into the path of some deranged swamp locals, it's love at first sight. Now she and Swamp Thing need to work together to bring her stepfather down, but of course, she can't last long without being a damsel in distress, and next thing you know she's strapped to Louis's machine. Can Swamp Thing save her in time?
This is a great time. For me it's up there as one of my favorite comic book movies. Different from the Wes Craven first one, Swamp Thing is more of an action hero here, which works better for me. At the same time, Wynorski turns up the tongue-in-cheek factor, and then brings in influences from old sci-films from the 50s and 60s. One in particular was when we saw all of Jourdan's botched experiments, one of which would have been the frightening reveal in one of those old movies, but he throws out a bunch of them as a form of dark humor. On top of that, Heather Locklear seemed to really get what Wynorski was going for with this, and played her part accordingly, which helped complete the overall vibe. This may not have had a billion-dollar budget with teaser trailers and stingers and whatever other stuff modern blockbusters had, but it was still a lot of fun.
Out of the great schlock auteurs, Wynorski is one that we haven't covered as much on the site, I think in part because he doesn't have as much action as a lot of the others, and we've tended to lean more toward action over time. That doesn't mean he's any less great, and despite the lack of quantity here, the quality has been big, between now this one, Chopping Mall, and Hard to Die, which led to the formation of the DTVC podcast after I was a guest on Drunk on VHS and we discussed that film. A distinction that he has with another great schlock auteur, Albert Pyun, is that they've both done a comic book movie. With the sheer volume of Wynorski out there, this definitely won't be the last time we see him here, but this film was a reminder of how much more I should be doing his work, because say what you want, his movies are often a lot of fun.
As I mentioned above, Heather Locklear was great in this as well. Mitch and I were trying to figure out how she was cast in this, and I think at the time she was known as a Soap actress, even if they were nighttime Soaps, and at that time that was a bigger issue than it was when she was on Melrose Place, when she started getting big budget Hollywood roles. It's amazing to think that that would have been the bigger decider on whether or not she got parts, as opposed to the range and ability to do comedic parts that she showed us here, but that's Hollywood for you. I was thinking this'll probably be the last time we see her on the DTVC, but a quick scan of her IMDb bio turned up Double Tap, a DTV flick from the late 90s that has been covered already by the guys at Comeuppance and Bulletproof Action. Something for us to look forward to.
It's interesting to think this came out the same year as Batman, a movie that changed what we thought comic book movies could be. I remember myself as a ten-year-old going with my friend, expecting the Adam West version of Batman, and being utterly shocked. What we see here in Wynorski's film is more of that comic book feel, I could imagine this being a series of drawn panels I would've been reading at that time, and it's a bit of a shame how post this period we don't have that much anymore. Ang Lee tried for it with his Hulk, but it was too literal and didn't work for me. I like Sam Raimi's Spider-Man movies for that vibe, but they don't quite hit that note the way this does for me, as they still leaned more in the Hollywood blockbuster lane. That then begs the question of where this sits on the comic book movie list for me. I think might it crack my top three after Batman '66, The Punisher '89. Other comic book movies among my favorites are Batman Returns, Superman II, Blade II, and Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance. Out of those, I think maybe Batman Returns and Superman II are better than this one, so maybe I just need to see them again in case there's some recency bias. Also of note, The Punisher came out this same year, but didn't get a theatrical release. You have to wonder how that may have influenced the comic book movie world.
Finally, in the film's opening credits we see a comic book panel with the Joker and what looks like Scarecrow. Going back to the fact that Batman comes out this same year, I think prior to that DC wasn't as protective over Batman, so the characters were more available for things like this. Only a couple years later in 1991 when I was collecting the DC Cosmic Trading Cards, Batman was conspicuously absent, with even Superman included (boy had the mighty fallen there, with Superman IV: The Quest for Peace hurting that franchise two years before). With the way that Batman has been getting darker and grittier since Burton's film in '89, it would be nice to see if they could swing the pendulum back. I know Affleck's Batman was less that, but could we get a Batman where he's just a comic book hero the way Swamp Thing is here? It doesn't have to be the '66 TV show level, but maybe we don't need 3-hour dark epics, maybe we don't need a Joker who's all deranged and deformed. The reality is though, I think I'm in the minority on this, as most people who like modern comic book movies never liked comics.
And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently this is available on Tubi, which is a great deal. Seeing a schlock auteur like Wynorski tackle a comic book like Swamp Thing is a lot of fun, and well worth checking out. Also check out the podcast I did with Mitch on this, episode 94 in the archives, it was a great conversation.
For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098193
And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!
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