The Return of Swamp Thing
The Return of Swamp Thing
PG-13 | 11 May 1989 (USA)
The Return of Swamp Thing Trailers

The Swamp Thing returns to battle the evil Dr. Arcane, who has a new science lab full of creatures transformed by genetic mutation, and chooses Heather Locklear as his new object of affection.

Reviews
Infamousta brilliant actors, brilliant editing
Pacionsbo Absolutely Fantastic
Catangro After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.
Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.
Michael_Elliott The Return of Swamp Thing (1989) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear) returns to the swamp to visit her stepdad and learns that he's doing strange experiments that are turning people into mutants. Before long she meets Swamp Thing (Dick Durock) who was a victim of her stepfather's and before long the two are falling for each other while he is battling the bad guys.I must admit right up front that I was never a big fan of Wes Craven's SWAMP THING. I tried watching it a couple times as a kid and then again as an adult but it just never worked for me. To me the film was way too serious and it seemed to forget that it should be fun. THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING comes from Jim Wynorski and there's no question that it captures the lighter mood of a comic book and delivers some fun throughout its running time.That's not to say that this here is a perfect movie because it's far from that. Truth be told, I can understand why some people wouldn't like this and especially since it does go over-the-top with its humor. I think the film was made campy on purpose and that's proven with some of the one-liners plus it never takes itself overly serious. The campy nature works well and especially during the action scenes as well as with creature designs. The mutants all look rather good in a low-budget way and help add to the fun.Of course, the story itself is basically THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU with pinches of the first film thrown in. For the most part I thought Durock was good in the lead, although the bad dubbing certainly didn't help the character. I also like Locklear in the part as she did the "dumb blonde" thing kind of well and she was certainly easy on the eyes. The villains in the film aren't the most memorable but they're far from awful as well.THE RETURN OF SWAMP THING has a different tone than the first movie and for my money that's okay.
SnoopyStyle Evil Dr. Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan) returns with a new lab and a new crew. Dr. Lana Zurrell (Sarah Douglas) and Dr. Rochelle are working on mutating their human subjects with plants, animals, and insects of the swamp. Anton's goons are murdering any trespassers. There is a monster on the loose. Abby Arcane (Heather Locklear) arrives to confront her stepfather. When she's attacked by local moonshiners, Swamp Thing comes to her rescue. Anton kidnaps her to experiment.This is intentionally made into a campier sequel to Swamp Thing (82). It's not actually funny. One can't blame the Razzie win on Heather Locklear. She's doing a deliberate bad acting job to fit into the campy style. It may work better if they commit harder to make it campier. This style is unlikely to work.
handleyr Return of the Swamp Thing takes the best aspect of the original Wes Craven cult classic (its camp value) and also the worst (its discontinuity with the comics) to produce an exceedingly silly and over-the-top film that ranks right up there with Attack of the Killer Tomatoes in terms of sheer comic-bookish hilarity.The casting works surprisingly well, despite the use of B- and C-list actors. Dick Durock, once again, brings far more class to the role of the Swamp Thing than the writing would seem to allow. And Louis Jordan, while completely unlike the Arcane seen in the comics in every way, is deliciously brilliant in every villainous role he's every played (see Octopussy as an example of a brilliant Jordan performance in an otherwise uninspired movie).Plus, what's not to love about Heather Locklear? Sure, she's missing Abby's Transylvanian accent from the comic. Sure, she portrays Abby as far more airheaded than she was in the comic. And sure, she's not wearing comic-book Abby's trademark jean cutoffs and read shirt. But this is Heather Locklear, folks, and she more than makes up for it every time she smiles. (Hey, I'm reviewing a corny movie...what better way to do so than to make corny statements?)Rumors abound that we might someday see a new Swamp Thing film, this time built around the landmark origin story Alan Moore brought to the character. We can only hope. In the meantime, both Swamp Thing films (while hardly high cinema) are still great B-movie fun. Make yourself some popcorn, check 'em both out and be sure to leave your brain in the swamp.Rich Handley Roots of the Swamp Thing http://www.swampthingroots.com
Vampenguin Every once in awhile, a sequel is a million times better than the original. This is just such a sequel! If you look up my review for Swamp Thing, you'll see that I didn't care to much for it. This, on the other hand, was great! They decided to go with the over-the-top comic-book style that the original skirted, which made the movie a lot more enjoyable. The effects improved greatly, the creatures in this actually looked like some effort was put into them! I especially liked the updated Swamp Thing costume, made him look a lot better and more intimidating. Louis Joudan was thankfully back, and his character, Dr. Anton Arcane, was even better than ever! His step-daughter Abby, played by Heather Locklear, was one of many great comic relief characters, along with the bumbling head of security named Gunn, and many others. The side plot with two kids trying to get Swampy's picture was a tad annoying, but it had it's amusing moments. Overall, this was a great intentionally cheesy B-movie, that you really should check out! 8/10