After The Blue Lagoon came out in 1980, the idea of cashing in had to appeal to exploitation filmmakers all over the world. After all, all you needed was a young guy and girl willing to get naked and do some love scenes on an island paradise. In Canada, Stuart Gillard — the man who would one day direct Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III — made Paradise with Phoebe Cates and Willie Aames. In Italy, directors Enzo Doria and Luigi Russo — who would go on to produce the similar yet Biblical Adam and Eve vs. the Cannibals a year later with Mark Gregory and Andrea Goldman — worked with writer Dardano Sacchetti (what movies didn’t he write in the 80s in Italy?) to bring their own version of La Laguna Blu to Italian screens with Fabio Meyer as Billy and Sabrina Siani as Bonnie.

As always, Siani is probably the best reason to watch this. She seems supernatural, like some kind of goddess carved from clay on Themyscira. She does the same in so many of the movies that she appears in, like Conquest, The Throne of Fire, 2020 Texas Gladiators and Ator the Fighting Eagle.

They land on a deserted island after a plane crash and think they’re all alone, but nope. There’s someone else on the island — Shanghai (Mario Pedone) — who at times seems like an enemy and other times a friend but then becomes an enemy again and then he saves them from a poisonous mollusk. Ah, confusion in an Italian movie, I love it so very much.

This was called Due gocce d’acqua salata in Italy, which means Two Drops of Salt Water. Blue Island is a much better name for this movie.

That said, for all the attention that Brooke Shields got for her beauty, I’d definitely say that she’s in Siani’s shadow.

The joy of Antonio Margheriti’s Raiders of the Lost Ark remixes — you can add The Ark of the Sun God and Jungle Raiders to this film — is that you get sequels without waiting for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.

Starring David Warbeck as Bob Jackson, an American soldier who is hired by British Captain David Franks (John Steiner) to make another try at finding the Golden Cobra, an artifact he almost got a year ago. Jackson has been thinking about another mission since then, as well as the gorgeous non-native woman who somehow was living amongst the tribe of Awoks. No, not Ewoks. Awoks. She saved his life as she was able to command the cannibal tribe, who follow her like a goddess.

But then he meets her twin sister (they’re both played by Almanta Suska from The New York Ripper). She and her uncle Greenwalter (Luciano Pigozzi, as always showing up in a Margheriti movie) have been trying to find her for years and Jackson seems like the best bet.

You know, I’m all for the Philippine jungle being used to great effect in Italian movies, as well as Margheriti’s great use of budget, miniatures and effects. There’s an entire room of cobras and a dummy drop to end the film!

Writers Gianfranco Couyoumdjian (The Last Hunter, The Last Blood, Code Name: Wild Geese) and Tito Carpi (Alien from the Deep, Atlantis Interceptors, Marta) have the Italian movie magic language to make this movie sing. As far as I’m concerned, this crew could have made twenty of these movie serial style movies, particularly when they include scenes where a crazed cult leader interrupts a slide show presentation. Also: Warbeck and Steiner are a fabulous adventure team and their dialogue is sparkling.

Thank you Keith Li for reminding me that I still can get physically sick while watching a movie. I thought that I had become numb to such a thing and then i watched your 1982 blast of insanity, Centipede Horror.

Centipedes may not get much love — well, they did get a video game back in 1980 — but they’re pretty horrifying. All centipedes are venomous, most are carnivorous and they can inflict painful bites that inject poison through their pincers. And they don’t just have a hundred legs. Nope, they can have anywhere from 30 to 382 legs.

A rich young woman named Kay goes to Thailand, despite her grandfather warning her to never visit there. Of course, as you can guess from the title of this movie, she’s assaulted by hundreds of centipedes, which causes her wounds to fester and bubble as only a category III would can become. She dies, which brings her brother Wai Lun to Thailand to watch her die and then get on the case of who did this to her.

If only she had worn the ugly necklace that was to protect her from centipedes! Yet as we all know, fashion can be dangerous.

Wai Lun brings his friend Yeuk-Chee along to figure out how they can make up for the crimes of his grandfather and stop a wizard’s curse. A wizard who curses and uses ghost children in his nefarious plans! This movie has it all and by all, I mean thousands of centipedes, including Margaret Li — who plays Yeuk-Chee — being an absolute trooper by sitting there with a mouthful of live centipedes crawling around her mouth waiting for Keith Li to say action so she can throw them up all over the place.

So yes, the pace is slow, it even drags until we get to the sorcerer battle at the end. But a reanimated chicken skeleton shows up and, yes, we have the heroine blowing centipede chunks and how can you ask the filmmakers to give us more than that?

Swamp Thing can trace his roots — yes, it’s a he — back to “It,” Theodore Sturgeon’s short story that ran in the pulp magazine Unknown in 1940. The story is all about a man — Roger Kirk — who dies and is reborn in a swamp.

This was an influential tale whose roots — pardon the pun — took hold throughout comic books, which were the younger brother of the pulps. In Air Fighters Comics #3, published in 1942, Sky Wolf (a World War II fighting ace given to wearing the mask of a wolf and helping Airboy battle the Axis) the muck-encrusted form of World War I German pilot Baron Eric von Emmelman returned from the grave in the same way that Roger Kirk did two years before.

Thanks to his immense force of will and the help of the goddess Ceres, as the Baron’s body decayed, he became one with the vegetation of the swamp that he was shot down over. Now, he was more marsh than man, and fought Sky Wolf until discovering the fanaticism of his countrymen.

Before long, The Heap was the heroic star of his own backup in Airboy Comics, with adventures lasting from 1946 to 1953. He’d return in 1986 as part of Eclipse Comics’ reboot of Airboy before being bought by Image Comics, where he’s now part of Todd McFarland’s Spawn Universe.

After EC Comics (the creators of Tales from the Crypt and The Vault of Horror amongst others) and other horror comics publishers were taken to task for their extreme material, the Comics Code Authority outlawed all monstrous characters unless they had literary roots. In fact, until the year 1989, you weren’t even allowed to say the word zombie in a mainstream comic book (Marvel got around this by calling them zuvembies, if you can believe that).

As the CCA relaxed its rules at the start of the 70’s, two different characters that  both grew from the Heap started at both Marvel Comics and their cross-town rivals, DC.

Man-Thing was created by Stan Lee and Roy Thomas (who’d go on to write Fire and Ice and adapted plenty of Conan stories, including the one that would be filmed for Conan the Destroyer). A series of conversations led to five different potential origins for the character, with the name being recycled from another character that had already appeared in Tales of Suspense #7 and #81.

Thomas would tell Alter Ego that Lee “had a couple of sentences or so for the concept — I think it was mainly the notion of a guy working on some experimental drug or something for the government, his being accosted by spies, and getting fused with the swamp so that he becomes this creature. The creature itself sounds a lot like the Heap, but neither of us mentioned that character at the time.” Lee also had the name for the character, which would lead to perhaps my favorite comic book title of all time: Giant-Sized Man-Thing.

While you’d think that Man-Thing would be a one-note character — he never speaks and he just kind of shows up in the swamps — but he grew from his first appearance, where he battled Marvel’s Tarzan-esque Ka-Zar to become something much different thanks to the deranged hands of Steve Gerber, who made Man-Thing the center of the Nexus of All Realities, which just so happened to be inside his swamp.

Once biochemist Dr. Theodore “Ted” Sallis and a former co-worker with Dr. Curtis “The Lizard” Connors, the man who would become Man-Thing was working on a version of Captain America’s Super Soldier formula with Dr. Barbara Morse (who would become Hawkeye’s wife Mockingbird, man, I read too many comics as a kid) when techno soldiers from Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.) and his betraying wife attacked. The result? You guessed it. Fused with the swamp, no brains and a tendency to wander. That said, Man-Thing also gained the ability to burn anyone who felt fear in his presence, so he had that going for him.

Man-Thing became a story engine for Gerber (who contended that he was just a reporter for the very real tales of the character, as he appeared as a fictional character within the comic), who used these stories to introduce sorceress Jennifer Kale, the barbarian Korrek who emerged from a jar of peanut butter, the serial murdering Foolkiller, Dakimh the Enchanter and Howard the Duck. Yep, Gerber’s Man-Thing was pure imagination writ large across the comic book page. After leaving comics, Gerber would write for plenty of cartoons, including Dungeons & Dragons, which his work had a major influence on.

At pretty much the same time, Len Wein came up with the idea for a swamp-based character as he rode the subway. “I didn’t have a title for it, so I kept referring to it as that swamp thing I’m working on. And that’s how it got its name!” Master illustrator Bernie Wrightson (he drew the comic cover for Creepshow) designed the character’s visual image and helped tell his first few adventures.

The Swamp Thing was once Dr. Alec Holland, who was working with his wife Linda to invent a solution for the world’s food shortage problems. After some thugs blew up their lab, his destroyed body was coated in one of his formulas and grew within the swamp, transforming him into a conscious plant with all of his old memories. Of course, once Alan Moore came on board — after this movie brought the character back to comics — we would learn that Swamp Thing was really the latest in a long line of Earth elementals that protect the Green.

If this all sounds like DC was stealing ideas from Marvel — well, they were all stealing from the Heap who was stealing from Theodore Sturgeon — let me blow your mind a little further. Swamp Thing writer Len Wein and Man-Thing’s co-writer, Gerry Conway, were roommates.

Despite the first version of Swamp Thing appearing in House of Secrets #92, Len Wein would later say, “Gerry and I thought that, unconsciously, the origin in Swamp Thing #1 was a bit too similar to the origin of Man-Thing a year-and-a-half earlier. There was vague talk at the time around Marvel of legal action, but it was never really pursued.”

It was decided that this was just a strange coincidence and after a while, the characters became so different, no legal action was necessary.

If you’d like to learn more about the fascinating lives of comic book swamp men, I recommend TwoMorrows’ Comic Book Creator 6: Swampmen. 

Whew! I told you all that so I can tell you this: In 1982, Wes Craven wrote and directed an adaption of the comic, long before comic book movies were a thing. His intent was to show the major Hollywood studios that he could handle action, stunts and major stars, all while doing it under his $2.5 million dollar budget. Good news — he succeeded.

A top-secret bioengineering project in the southern swamps is dealing with sabotage, so Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau, playing a mix of the comic’s Matt Cable and Abigail Arcade) has been dispatched to replace one of the scientists who has been killed. She soon meets lead scientist Dr. Alce Holland (Ray Wise) and his sister Dr. Linda, who together have developed a glowing plant with explosive properties, as well as a combination animal/plant hybrid.

The real issue is that the secret base is being eyed by the evil Anton Arcane, a paramilitary leader who wants the fruits — and vegetables — of all this labor for himself. He’s played by Louis Jourdan, who is absolutely perfect in the role, oozing menace from every pore while remaining aloof and almost high cultured in his pursuit of evil.

Soon, Arcane’s forces attack, murdering Linda and blowing Alec up real good. However, just like the comic, he now rises as Swamp Thing, played by stuntman DIck Durock (who was also the pie-eating champion in Stand By Me). Now, he must protect Alice and his notes, keeping them both from Arcane.

The movie differs from the comic in that Holland’s formula unleashes whatever dominant personality trait exists within each person. For Holland, it’s the ability to heal and transform his inner strength into outer muscle. Yet Bruno (Nicholas Worth, who played the heavy in plenty of films and lent his voice to the Reaper in The Hills Have Eyes Part II), the biggest of Arcane’s henchmen, becomes a small rat-like creature and Arcane himself becomes a gigantic boar.

Another of Arcane’s henchmen — Ferret, the one who gets his neck snapped by Swamp Thing — is played by David Hess, who was Krug in The Last House On the Left. Also, Karen Price, who plays one of Arcane’s messengers, was Playboy‘s Playmate of the Month for January 1981. I tell you that because it’s her centerfold that appears on the tail of Gyro Captain’s copter in The Road Warrior.

There was one bit of controversy this film caused, more than a decade after it was released.

In August 2000, MGM released this movie on DVD and although it was labeled PG, it actually included the 93-minute international cut, which amps up Adrienne Barbeau’s ample charms and nudity in the skinny dip sequence. Two years after that, a woman rented this film in Dallas for her kids and was shocked and dismayed by what her family saw. Trust me — they should be so lucky!

Durock and Jourdan — along with much of the crew, including producers Michael E. Uslan and Benjamin Melniker — would return in 1989 for Return of Swamp Thing. It’s directed by Jim Wynorski and features Heather Locklear as Abigail Arcane, who heads to the swamp to confront her stepfather Dr. Arcane. He’s been brought back to the dead by the evil Dr. Lana Zurrell (Sarah Douglas, Ursa from Superman) along with an army of mutant Un-Men, all ready to do battle with Swamp Thing.

If anything, that movie gave us more than a series on the USA Network and a cartoon complete with Kenner action figures (of course I bought every single one). It also gave us this, a PSA where Swamp Thing speaks for Greenpeace.

Good news. Today you learned way more than you ever thought you would about 20th century popular fiction involving swamp-based creatures. Would it help even further if I told you that Man-Thing also appeared in a 2005 SyFy movie directed by Brett Leonard (The Dead Pit, The Lawnmower Man, Hideaway)? I sure hope so.

The MVD 4K UHD/bluy ray combo of Swamp Thing include a new 4K restoration — a 16-bit scan of the original camera negative — of the U.S. theatrical PG  and unrated international versions of the film.  There’s archival commentary by Craven moderated by Sean Clark, as well as alternate commentary with makeup artist William Munn moderated by Michael Felsher. Yoy also get a collectible 4K LaserVision mini-poster and a limited edition slipcover.

Special features include interviews with Adrienne Barbeau, Reggie Batts and creator Len Wein, as well as features on drawing Swamp Thing and Craven’s direction. Plus, there’s a photo gallery of the posters and lobby cards, photos from the film, behind-the-scenes photos and a trailer.

You can get it from MVD. There’s also a blu ray edition.

Three women — a housewife named Christine M. (Edda Barends), a waitress named Ann Jongman (Nelly Frijda) and executive secretary Andrea Brouwer (Henriëtte Tol) — have murdered a male shopkeeper in the middle of the day for no reason. No premeditation. And none of them know one another. A female psychiatrist (Cox Habbema) must now discover why.

Directed by Marleen Gorris, who also made the Oscar-winning Antonio’s Line, this film takes us into the lives of each of the women as the doctor interviews each of them as well as the people in their lives, all to learn if this murder was thought through or was simply a random act.

The movie finally shows precisely how the woman led the man to his death without revealing the actual killing. But we do learn all of the negative experiences they’ve had with men throughout their lives and what would lead them to destroy a man, even castrating him and crushing his face. By the end, they laugh about the murder during their trial and their laughter is repeated by every woman in the room. To the credit of the director and her cast, this movie is still so potent more than forty years later.

The Cult Epics Blu-ray release of A Question of Silence has a new 2K HD transfer and restoration audio commentary by film scholar Patricia Pisters. It also features interviews with director Marleen Gorris and actress Cox Habbema, a promotional gallery, trailers and more. You can get it from MVD.