Professional bullfighter Gaston Santos ("and his horse Moonlight!", the opening credits proclaim) stars in "Swamp of the Lost Monster", a Mexican cheapie whose English-dubbed version was produced by K. Gordon Murray. Mr. Murray was the cinematic giant who brought us "The Robot Vs. the Aztec Mummy" and other examples of bad south-of-the-border movie-making. "Swamp" is different from the usual Murray fare in a couple of important respects: it's in color, and it's not a straight horror film. It's difficult to imagine what motivated the creators of "Swamp of the Lost Monster"--there aren't enough mystery or horror or Western trappings to satisfy fans of any one of those genres. The plot revolves around a missing corpse, that of a man who may have died of some unknown, highly contagious disease. A ridiculous-looking aquatic monster (referred to a couple of times in the dubbed version of the film as a "Martian"), a saloon shootout and some bad comedy are thrown into the mix just for shits and giggles. "Swamp" has absolutely nothing going for it except its oddness, but the film is odd only in the most pedestrian sense. It's not laughably bad like an Ed Wood movie, or downright bizarre like the works of Herschell Gordon Lewis--it's just unclassifiable and, ultimately, uninteresting. Watching it on "Commander USA's Groovie Movies", as I did about twenty-five years ago, made it seem a lot more entertaining. One footnote: there are, strangely enough, two or three nicely photographed moments in the film. The best of these is when the monster emerges from the river and pulls a screaming victim back down into the muddy depths with him. Hopefully the cinematographer went on to better things.
12 Reviews
Silly, pointless mishmash of mystery, horror, and Western genres.
InjunNose18 May 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Strange
BandSAboutMovies3 July 2020
Warning: Spoilers
A small Mexican village is dealing with not just the death of a man, but the fact that his body has disappeared too. Now, his brother and a cowboy detective friend (Gaston Santos, who played the same role of a cowboy against the unknown in The Living Coffin, Los Diablos del Terror, La Flecha Envenenada and El Potro Salvaje) head out to battle the gang that killed the man and now want his insurance money.
There's one complication: a man-fish who is just swimming around town.
Seriously, I would have never watched this movie if it wasn't for the look of this humanoid fishy man. He's amazing and every moment he's on screen elevates this movie from typical sagebrush adventure to the realm of absurdity.
Known up here as Swamp of Lost Souls, it was directed by Rafael Baledon, who also brought us Orlak, el Infierno de Frankenstein.
There's one complication: a man-fish who is just swimming around town.
Seriously, I would have never watched this movie if it wasn't for the look of this humanoid fishy man. He's amazing and every moment he's on screen elevates this movie from typical sagebrush adventure to the realm of absurdity.
Known up here as Swamp of Lost Souls, it was directed by Rafael Baledon, who also brought us Orlak, el Infierno de Frankenstein.
¿Qué?
Coventry14 October 2007
Well, this was an unimaginably huge disappointment, and I'm really not used to be disappointed by a 50's Mexican horror production, especially not when the man in the director's chair is the same genius (?) responsible for one of the greatest Gothic masterpieces ever made, namely "The Curse of the Crying Woman". "Swamp of the Lost Monster" is an odd and lackluster hodgepodge of styles and genres and, despite its short running time, it's an incredibly boring effort. Horror and western story lines are already hard to combine as it is, and when the film then also tries to add in a mystery sub plot and some comical relief characters, it rapidly becomes a failure beyond imaginable proportions. The primary storyline centers on a laughably ridicule monster (some kind of hybrid between the "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and the aborted offspring of "Octaman") dragging people into a swamp and killing them. The dork in his stupid rubber suit first appeared when the corpse of a local eminent villager vanished from its coffin before the burial, yet nobody (not even the cowboy-detective or his assistant) seems to notice the link. There's another totally implausible sub plot about an old blind hag fooling the entire town into thinking she can see and a glorious, almost Academy-Award worthy role for the endlessly prancing horse. Too bad about the atmospheric filming locations and the occasional glimpses of decent photography, but the film is a total dud.
A Haunted Swamp, Bland Heroics and Ol' Squirreleyes
kikaidar29 November 2000
The merging of the horror and western genres has been a sort of warped grail for various enterprising producers. After all, the blending of a supernatural menace and a few hapless victims in an endless and vastly isolating prairie _should_ generate a certain amount of easy suspense value. You'd think.
The fact remains that no studio, no matter what resources it brings into play, or how determined the cast and crew may be, has succeeded in making a viable horror western. Not that they haven't tried. CURSE OF THE UNDEAD succeeded in injecting a certain unreal quality to a couple of exterior scenes, but for the most part, the product of these tamperings played on the artistic level of TEENAGE MONSTER, BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA or JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN.
This said, I have to confess a certain unfathomable affection for this mid-'50s color offering from Mexico. Initially released as SWAMP OF THE SOULS, the film was subsequently dubbed for release to American TV by K. Gordon Murray, and given the archly deceptive title SWAMP OF THE LOST MONSTER (or, if you check the title card on a wide screen, the film hints at more than one terrifying creature -- it has none).
In watching SWAMP, certain concessions must be made. This is not CITIZEN KANE. It's actually a modest little, rural-set mystery film with a few token "horror" trappings added to make it intriguing to the unsuspecting. The plotting is strictly "Point A To Point B" in execution, and it features the bland (almost languid in places) heroics of Gaston Santos and a thoroughly infuriating comedy relief in the character "Squirreleyes." Santos had evidently been somewhat in demand at around this time, appearing in a handful of films -- several with fantasy themes.
SWAMP works best if you accept it as a lightweight watch for a rainy day. Interestingly, the public domain prerecord contains several lines which slightly clarify character's stances which seem to be missing from the TV print which was circulating erratically as late as the middle-1980s.
The action revolves around the mysterious disappearance of the corpse of a man, killed in a hut in the swamp, by "the beast" -- a rather lumpy orange sea creature with a wide nasty streak. Clearly seen in his coffin at both the jetty and at the graveyard, the corpse is missing when the coffin is opened a third time, so the deceased's son can have a final look. The local doctor and the dead man's brother instantly swear the peons to secrecy and send them out to locate the body, which may or may not carry a virulent disease.
Local rancher and detective Gaston is brought in by the son, who is ambushed en route to his estate, but still manages to gasp out a few details before he expires.
Gaston goes to the widow's estate and divides his attention between trying to renew his relationship with the woman's niece and seeking the solution of the puzzle of the missing body. A gang of local toughs are somehow involved, as is a dread secret the widow is struggling to keep.
The whole affair eventually boils down to a plot to collect on several massive insurance policies held by the dead man's brother, and defraud the widow of the last of her savings.
The film has a few holes. First and foremost, the "monster" is revealed as a cheat within 20 minutes of the opening credits, when it takes a potshot at Gaston with a speargun. Though it's played fairly "straight" as a monster for most of the ensuing action sequences, the audience already realizes that it's been gulled. An odd decision on the part of the writer.
Then there is Gaston's comedy sidekick, Squirreleyes. This worthy has been called in by Gaston to assist him (evidently by making Gaston seem brighter by simply being on hand to invite comparison). Squirreleyes is superstitious, sings (badly) and begins to grate within the first few seconds of his introduction.
A 5 out of 10, simply because it's mild fun with no real demands made on the viewer.
The fact remains that no studio, no matter what resources it brings into play, or how determined the cast and crew may be, has succeeded in making a viable horror western. Not that they haven't tried. CURSE OF THE UNDEAD succeeded in injecting a certain unreal quality to a couple of exterior scenes, but for the most part, the product of these tamperings played on the artistic level of TEENAGE MONSTER, BILLY THE KID VS. DRACULA or JESSE JAMES MEETS FRANKENSTEIN.
This said, I have to confess a certain unfathomable affection for this mid-'50s color offering from Mexico. Initially released as SWAMP OF THE SOULS, the film was subsequently dubbed for release to American TV by K. Gordon Murray, and given the archly deceptive title SWAMP OF THE LOST MONSTER (or, if you check the title card on a wide screen, the film hints at more than one terrifying creature -- it has none).
In watching SWAMP, certain concessions must be made. This is not CITIZEN KANE. It's actually a modest little, rural-set mystery film with a few token "horror" trappings added to make it intriguing to the unsuspecting. The plotting is strictly "Point A To Point B" in execution, and it features the bland (almost languid in places) heroics of Gaston Santos and a thoroughly infuriating comedy relief in the character "Squirreleyes." Santos had evidently been somewhat in demand at around this time, appearing in a handful of films -- several with fantasy themes.
SWAMP works best if you accept it as a lightweight watch for a rainy day. Interestingly, the public domain prerecord contains several lines which slightly clarify character's stances which seem to be missing from the TV print which was circulating erratically as late as the middle-1980s.
The action revolves around the mysterious disappearance of the corpse of a man, killed in a hut in the swamp, by "the beast" -- a rather lumpy orange sea creature with a wide nasty streak. Clearly seen in his coffin at both the jetty and at the graveyard, the corpse is missing when the coffin is opened a third time, so the deceased's son can have a final look. The local doctor and the dead man's brother instantly swear the peons to secrecy and send them out to locate the body, which may or may not carry a virulent disease.
Local rancher and detective Gaston is brought in by the son, who is ambushed en route to his estate, but still manages to gasp out a few details before he expires.
Gaston goes to the widow's estate and divides his attention between trying to renew his relationship with the woman's niece and seeking the solution of the puzzle of the missing body. A gang of local toughs are somehow involved, as is a dread secret the widow is struggling to keep.
The whole affair eventually boils down to a plot to collect on several massive insurance policies held by the dead man's brother, and defraud the widow of the last of her savings.
The film has a few holes. First and foremost, the "monster" is revealed as a cheat within 20 minutes of the opening credits, when it takes a potshot at Gaston with a speargun. Though it's played fairly "straight" as a monster for most of the ensuing action sequences, the audience already realizes that it's been gulled. An odd decision on the part of the writer.
Then there is Gaston's comedy sidekick, Squirreleyes. This worthy has been called in by Gaston to assist him (evidently by making Gaston seem brighter by simply being on hand to invite comparison). Squirreleyes is superstitious, sings (badly) and begins to grate within the first few seconds of his introduction.
A 5 out of 10, simply because it's mild fun with no real demands made on the viewer.
"Pants of the animals?" Hmmm. maybe I don't have my spanish right.
Kelly G.29 December 2002
Whatever the title of this one is (the copy i saw was titled "Swamp of the lost monster," and had a video print that looked like it's film stock had been soaked in urine and scraped by steel wool) it's a pretty bad little Z grade horror/mystery/western about a fey looking cowboy who rides into town with his seemingly indestructable comic sidekick and stumbles onto a mystery involving an insurance scam, bandits, horse dancing, and a goofy looking monster who emerges from some of sickest, most opaque "water" I've ever seen. Seriously, the dude who wore that suit better have recieved some kind of shots after filming, because I'll bet a thimble full of that stuff would have given you digestive problems for quite some time.
I've always found that making fun or heaping scorn on one of these zipper monster movies is just too easy, and kind of a waste of time. I mean sure the movie is bad, but, aren't all examples of this particular subgenera of horror lame?
So once again, it's bad. But you should have been able to tell that even before you handed over your rental card.
I've always found that making fun or heaping scorn on one of these zipper monster movies is just too easy, and kind of a waste of time. I mean sure the movie is bad, but, aren't all examples of this particular subgenera of horror lame?
So once again, it's bad. But you should have been able to tell that even before you handed over your rental card.
El Stupido! Warning...nothing to redeem.
michaelRokeefe14 July 2002
This Mexican project was dubbed for American release as SWAMP OF THE LOST MONSTER by K. Gordon Murray. Filmed in shades of creamed coffee this claimed horror flick lives up to being called one of the "World's Worst Movies". A man disappears from his coffin before he is even buried. He had the misfortune of being killed by a mysterious lake dwelling gilled-man/creature. The extremely low budget helps this to be a laugh riot instead of a scream fest. You owe it to yourself to at least watch long enough to see the dime store monster from the deep! I don't know if being loaded with a six pack of Mexican brew and an atomic burrito would help this stinker terrorize anyone.
Viva Gaston Santos!
m-romanassociates16 March 2009
El Pantano De Las Animas (Ghost Swamp) When I was a young kid, I saw this movie, along with several others by the great bullfighter and actor Gaston Santos. I was living in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico at the time and I always enjoyed watching his movies and watching him bullfighting on top of his horse(s) at the old Plaza De Toros El Progreso.
In the late 1980's I purchased his movies in Chicago, Illinois and watched each one of them with my children and wife, whom is also from Mexico. My entire family enjoyed them almost as much as I did when I first saw them. Gaston Santos was a great role model for many Hispanic children. I wish there were more persons like Gaston now a days to provide this new "sophisticated" generation with legitimate role models to inspire and influence them as he did to my generation.
The issue is not whether or not the films were master pieces, rather, whether the moral of the stories had redeeming social value. I know they did because the messages of good against evil have remained in my life as a guiding light much like the similar messages in the Indiana Jones films have done for millions.
In the late 1980's I purchased his movies in Chicago, Illinois and watched each one of them with my children and wife, whom is also from Mexico. My entire family enjoyed them almost as much as I did when I first saw them. Gaston Santos was a great role model for many Hispanic children. I wish there were more persons like Gaston now a days to provide this new "sophisticated" generation with legitimate role models to inspire and influence them as he did to my generation.
The issue is not whether or not the films were master pieces, rather, whether the moral of the stories had redeeming social value. I know they did because the messages of good against evil have remained in my life as a guiding light much like the similar messages in the Indiana Jones films have done for millions.
My favorite Mexican Monster movie
captnemo16 August 2002
I've seen lots of these K. Gordon Murray specialties, like the Aztec Mummy series, Nostrodamus, etc. They are all terrible, but this one has a certain charm to it. I won't give anything vital away, but a short description is in order. A man dies and his corpse goes missing. His heir, a beautiful woman, comes to take over the estate. Weird things happen involving some sort of monster and a cowboy/detective arrives to investigate. That's all I'll say. Its got some atmosphere and nice scenery, and that's all. It still stinks, but not as bad as Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy. This would have been ideal for an episode of MST3K. RATING: 3 out of 10. Barely watchable.
Cheesy, campy, altogther amusing but not educational
agirlwhoreallylovesmovies4 August 2002
"Swamp of the Lost Monster" is one of those movies that you watch at a party with friends so that they can make fun of it. In fact, I have done that and that was the one and only time I've seen it. The one thing that would be really fun to do to this movie is take out all the dialogue and add your own - like during a fight scene play "Hit me With Your Best Shot" or something. It wouldn't necessarily make the movie better, but then again, it sure couldn't make it worse. Watch this with your friends and make fun of it. Just don't take it seriously.
Juvenile celluloid zurullo.
EyeAskance14 April 2004
Warning: Spoilers
A complete nonsensory overload, this floundering Mexican monster-mash clumsily juggles the horror, western, and mystery genres with its broad array of stylistic trappings. Too whimsical and indifferently manufactured to satisfy any but a pre-teen matinée audience, this is marginal fluff in even that trifling respect. The rubber suit monster is pretty laughable, sort of resembling a 6 foot tall cousin of GORGO.
*SPOILER*...it ain't even a real monster, folks, as you'll probably deduce once you see it send out a message in morse code.
Avoid this sloppy discomfiture...there's far more siesta than fiesta to be had here.
3/10
*SPOILER*...it ain't even a real monster, folks, as you'll probably deduce once you see it send out a message in morse code.
Avoid this sloppy discomfiture...there's far more siesta than fiesta to be had here.
3/10
A Commander USA Groovy Movie
scottmar10 May 2003
I saw this as part of a Commander USA Groovy Movie that I got my hands on. Titled "Swamp of the Lost Monster". An odd horror/western flick that ends with a Scooby Doo ending (which you could predict when you see the monster using a spear gun!). Good ole K. Gordon Murray produced this English language version. K. Gordon was held hostage in an adobe hut for years being forced to make English language versions of bad Mexican movies.
stupid piece of trash!!
J. YATES4 October 1999
THE MOST IDIOTIC CRUD I'VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!! This movie is so bad, it'll make you want to smash it into pieces. on the box, it says it was made in 1970! yeah right!! try 1964, in mexico. 0 out of 4. Big time loser!! Since it was not rated by the MPAA, i gave it a G for silly violence that's not as bad as Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is the biggest rating violater of all time!!!
AVOID AT ALL COSTS.....even if your store only sells it for a penny.
Jonathan Yates (yes, the screenwriter)
AVOID AT ALL COSTS.....even if your store only sells it for a penny.
Jonathan Yates (yes, the screenwriter)
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