Vashirdfel Simply A Masterpiece

Casey Duggan It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

Calum Hutton It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Jonah Abbott There's no way I can possibly love it entirely but I just think its ridiculously bad, but enjoyable at the same time.

utgard14 Well this is excrement. It's supposedly about the Marvel Comics character Man-Thing but, in reality, it's a cheap little TV-quality grade-Z horror movie that has very little in common with the comics. Even then, there could be some value in this if it had even the slightest bit of talent behind it. But it doesn't and it sucks. The writing, acting, directing, special effects, music, and pretty much every single other thing you could think of is generic and cheap. The basic plot is that there's a creature in the swamp killing horny teenagers so the town's new sheriff investigates. This guy's the clichéd "big city cop turned country sheriff" character that has appeared in about ten thousand movies. He looks like a cross between Ed Westwick and a young Peter Deluise, so you can imagine what a commanding presence he has. He shows up in the bayou wearing a leather jacket and shades while toothless yokels say things like "You city boys shore are funny." Please. Honestly, just don't with this. It's garbage in every way. If you enjoy shitty made-for-TV/DVD horror movies then go right ahead and poison yourself with this stuff. I'd rather find something more productive to do with my time, like staring at the sun. Oh and Rachael Taylor's in this. Because it was made in Australia. Because that looks just like Louisiana. Because we're all idiots.

Paul Andrews Man-Thing is set in the small town of Bywater & starts as new Sheriff Kyle Williams (Matthew Le Nevez) arrives to begin his first day on the job taking over from the previous Sheriff who mysteriously disappeared along with several other local residents over the past few months. Straight away Sheriff Williams is called into action as he learns of an ongoing feud between rich oil industrialist Frederic Schist (Jack Thompson) & local environmentalists who are trying to stop Schist building more oil rigs in & around Bywater. Sheriff Williams learns that various bodies have been found in the swamps, mutilated bodies with plants growing from the inside out & that an ancient native American myth may be responsible for the killings. Sheriff Williams sets out to discover the truth & finds that the ancient legends are true & that a giant swamp monster is roaming the swamps killing any trespasser...This American Australian co-production was directed by Brett Leonard who also has a small part in the film as Val Mayerick & is based on the Marvel comic book character Man-Thing who first appeared in Savage Tales in 1971 & had gained his own self titled comic book by 1974, although I know little of the actual Man-Thing comic book this film apparently bears little resemblance to it. In the comic book a scientist named Ted Sallis fell into a swamp & mutated into Man-Thing because of chemicals he had developed while the script for the film has someone named Ted Sallis murdered by oil tycoon Schist & buried in the swamp & it's hinted that it's him who is Man-Thing although it's quite ambiguous. Although based on a superhero comic book it's hard to tell while actually watching it, there's no sense of justice or right or wrong & Man-Thing has no great motivation & generally just seems to kill anyone it comes across including a teenage boy in a boat who in all honestly wasn't doing anything wrong at all, also why kill the Deputy when again he was a good guy? Man-Thing feels much more like a Sy-Fy Channel creature feature with some monster roaming around killing bit part character's & the local Sheriff investigating the murders, at just over 90 minutes long Man-Thing has a decent pace but it gets repetitive & the native American magic nonsense is dull & predictable as the overall explanation. The character's are all clichéd, the local Sheriff, the pretty female teacher, a few Redneck goons & the big bad businessman villain. While Man-Thing is better than the usual creature feature it's not that great, it plods along & never really captivates or comes to life as large parts of the film just feature people walking around dark swamps at night & I don't understand why Man-Thing itself isn't fully revealed until past the 70 minute mark as I found myself sitting there just waiting for it to show up.Obviously quite similar to the DC Comics character Swamp Thing the two have much in common, often this film lowers itself to standard horror film clichés with teenagers killed, vague supernatural nonsense & a big monster which does look quite good actually. The CGI computer effects are better than I expected & Man-Thing looks quite good although is underused & is never anything more than a one dimensional monster rather than the complex character with depth that appeared in the comic books. Originally planned to go straight to video there were plans for Man-Thing to have a limited theatrical release which were dropped & it eventually premiered on the Sy-Fy Channel before being released on DVD. Apparently a test screening was held & half the audience walked out before the end, that says it all really.Originally to be filmed in New Orleans budget restraints forced a rethink & it was eventually shot in Sydney in Australia. The production values are pretty good & it looks quite slick with a nice tinted green colour to all the swamp scenes. The acting is alright, it's nothing special but the material isn't great so the actors didn't have much to work with.Man-Thing is more of a cheap Sy-Fy Channel creature feature than a Marvel comic book superhero film, in fact if you weren't aware of the Man-Thing origins then you wouldn't know this was based on a comic book by simply watching it. I suppose it passes 90 odd minutes & is well made but ultimately hollow & forgettable.

Sandcooler This creature feature really is surprisingly stylish. Well, all they did was blow lots and lots of green fog over the set, but that's more effort than this kind of movie usually takes. The movie looks excellent, which I can applaud. There's also a mystery aspect woven in to keep away the boredom for some more minutes, and the outcome to that plot is also pretty good. That doesn't make the movie good however, just tolerable. It's still just doing the same thing every other creature feature does, complete with the prologue about a couple wandering of for no reason, having sex and getting killed. Sometimes I wonder how many times I've seen a scene like that in my life, but I prefer not to know. There's also the implausibly heartless villain tampering with nature, is anyone really supposed to be surprised when he gets killed? The weirdest thing though is the casting. I know some of this movie was filmed in Australia, but at least try to find actors who can hide their Aussie accent a little. I'm talking to you, standard love interest. And how can a girl that pretty be a native in a town like that anyway, where every other person looks like a "Deliverance"-reject? Oh well, still not a bad movie.

ma-cortes An Oil Company whose owner is an ambitious villain(Jack Thompson)is polluting the Bywater lands and the villagers are up in arms and a swamp thing is committing horrible murders. A new sheriff named Kyle(Matthew Le Nevez) arrives the little town. He is sent to the Bayou to investigate , helped by a deputy (Alex O'Loughlin) . There finds a beast, a plant with an animal's aggression power for survival and fury. Meanwhile the sheriff falls in love with a gorgeous elementary school teacher named Teri ( Rachael Taylor).This exciting picture is packed by thrills, chills, gory killings and brief nudism in charge of Imogen Bailey. It's an unusual mix of monster movie and intrigue but definitely an enjoyable movie. From the producers- Avi Arad and Stan Lee- of Spiderman, Daredevil, X men, Blade and several others. Director Brett Leonard made this campy swamp romp adapted from the Marvel comic books of the same name. Director deliberately use comic-book style to keep us from taking anything too seriously. It's a co-production USA-Australia filmed in Sydney , New South Wales with good cinematography by Steve Arnold. Fans horror will love this movie about a monster part vegetable, part man . In similar style adapted from D.C. Comics were made in 1982 ¨The Swamp Thing¨ by Wes Craven with Louis Jourdan, Adrienne Barbeau and Ray Wise in which a chemical installation turns into walking vegetation monster. And its following : ¨Return of Swamp Thing¨(1989) by Jim Wynorski with Heather Lockleaar, Lous Jourdan and Sarah Douglas.