Rio Hayward
All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.
Patience Watson
One of those movie experiences that is so good it makes you realize you've been grading everything else on a curve.
gojiseb
Len Kabasinski should really be applauded for going back and re-editing his older films. Swamp Zombies had always been a fun movie marred by an overly long runtime. This new release trims it down from being over two hours long to being a solid 86 minutes. It flows better and is just a generally more satisfying watch. It's tons of fun and more or less delivers on what you'd want from a micro-budget zombie flick. It's not high art but it is exactly what the cover says.Make sure you pick up the director's cut and set your mind to its more relaxed level before watching and you're bound to have a good time.
GL84
Working in an isolated hospital, a doctor attempting to create a serum for patients to get through surgery better finds that his work has created a race of flesh-eating zombies that are targeting a group of college students on a field trip and tries to stop the creatures.This wasn't all that bad of a low-budget zombie effort. Among it's better features here is the fun and engaging storyline that works quite nicely for this one, giving it a stronger outing than most ever accomplish. Taking the two different story lines here, from the scientists' race to keep the serum hidden away from the agents to the field trip conveniently nearby gives this one the kind of set-up that is far more involved yet still seemingly logical enough throughout here which is rarely accomplished here for these kinds of efforts. That allows this one to go for two rather intriguing and enjoyable set- ups at the same time, with the hospital antics featuring the staff getting tormented by the reanimated zombies in the wings and corridors as well as letting this one get the students being attacked out in the woods nearby for tons of low-budget fun. While in the hospital, this one features the great double attack in the morgue where the creatures rise up and attack the couple there, the battles with the swarm emerging out of the basement and the later scenes where they all encounter the creatures when they return to the hospital. As well, the swamplands battles are far more fun as the continuously approaching zombies keep going after not only after the students but also the interlopers that appear which leads to the attacks on the fishermen, the coeds by the beach and the rangers out patrolling the area which leads to plenty of highly enjoyable scenes. Utilizing the rugged, unnatural location to great effect, there's plenty to like here with the zombies able to continuously get the surprise on their victims with the ability to swarm and then overpower their target which gives this a nice feeling of continuity with all the attacks coming together in the same manner which gets enhanced with the addition of the police officers who get involved in the second act which puts that into greater use than before. With this all comprising the second half of the film, there's a lot of rather fun and engaging action scenes that show their encounters and escape attempts to get away from the horde of creatures featured, giving this one the necessary gore and fine zombie make-up to really be worthwhile. There's still a few problems with this one that holds it back, which mainly comes from the film's overlong length that really had no reason to be as long as it is. Pushing two hours on a set-up like this isn't required since utilizing all these different story lines throughout here as it's way too busy and convoluted to tell this kind of simplistic story, requiring it to be far longer than necessary. The other big part of this one that really holds it back is the cheesy low-budget nature of this one, which is quite obvious and really leaves this feeling cheaper than it really should be with the gore effects and technical issues on display which really screams low-budget, one- take filmmaking. It's not enough to hold this back completely, but there's a lot taken away with these flaws.Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence, Nudity, a sex scene and some drug use.
CorblimeyGuvnors
Watched this on the Catacomb of Creepshow box set. 10th film I have watched out of 50 and this rates as one of the lower films for entertainment value. An institute are carrying out experiments to raise the dead. When they have a government inspection, they decide to dump the bodies in the local river/Swamp. It is not long before they are washed ashore and start devouring the living. The acting is of the amateur dramatics school. Usually I can live with this, but this, with some of the poor sound quality, just made this quite painful at times. The fighting/action was extremely contrived and staged. How odd that all of the characters were trained in martial arts and could fight in a martial arts style. The police officers in the film stood out because they wore plain T- shirts with large print writing on them saying POLICE. Also if they were not wearing their T-shirts they reverted to a white shirt with a badge stating they were police rather like a name tag. Jasmin St Claire is (or was) an adult entertainer and actually her acting was better than most of the cast on show here. Some positives. I liked some of the zombie make up and the gore effects were well managed. Some of the gunshot effects were also good, especially those to the head, as is typical in these films. Music was good (but this will depend on your tolerance to thrash/Death metal).Overall a struggle to maintain my interest. There were some moments, but not enough. This runs for 1 Hr and 53 Minutes and is way too long. I have read that this was edited down from three hours !!!!! If so perhaps there will be a special edition DVD to look out for ...... Not.
Paul Magne Haakonsen
There are good zombies movies and there are bad zombie movies. "Swamp Zombies" fall into the latter category. The DVD cover actually looks promising enough, but once you start the movie, that illusion vaporises like dew in the morning sun.The story in "Swamp Zombies" is fairly much average for a zombie movie. Experiments were being done on corpses, and for some reason the corpses come back to life, hungry for human flesh.But the acting in "Swamp Zombies". Wow, that baffled me. I have rarely seen anything like it. Most of the performances put on here were well below average, with forced, halted dialogue and performances that you never really bought into. Most of the people seemed like they had just memorized their lines and were stumbling through to put them out there. It was painful to watch. I am not sure why, but apparently it was a big deal to Brain Dead Films to have Brian Heffron, Jasmin St. Claire and Dan Severn on the cast list, but those people can't act!There is a good enough amount of gore in the movie, and that is actually the one thing that the movie have working for it. But it is hardly nowhere enough to make it interesting.The zombie make-up, well it was almost non-existent, was nothing interesting. Most of them looked just like ordinary people. So nothing to come here for.Sure "Swamp Zombies" is an ambitious project, and hats off to Brain Dead Films to do this. But the movie never rises beyond an amateur attempt at making a movie. I am sure there are fans out there for these particular types of low-budget movies. I, however, am just not one of them. I don't mind low-budget movies, but this was just too uneventful and too plain.
