Melanie (Cindy Sampson) thinks she's out of the sticks and hasn't been back there since she was 12. When she gets a call from Jimmy Fuller (Nicolas Wright) telling her that she needs to come home, she's very reluctant. Melanie refuses to come until Jimmy tells her that her father, Howard (Bruce Dern), is dying. Well, of course, that's going to make her go home. Once she gets there though, Jimmy tells her that the truth is that her father's not dying. Instead, he is wanted for murder and is hiding out in the woods. Did I mention her father used to be the sheriff of the town?
It's pretty obvious that something is just not quite right after he takes her to his mother, Shelly (Bronwen Mantel). At least it was obvious to us. There's just something not quite right about the situation. Anyway, he takes her to her dad's cabin and goes off for a bit. Suddenly Deputy Jolene (Allison Graham) burst into the cabin and threatens to shoot Melanie as an intruder. Sheriff Nelson (James Kidnie) diffuses the situation, but then tells Melanie that he's never heard of a Jimmy Fuller. Personally, I think she should really be suspicious at his point, but maybe that's just me. From here on out, Melanie's going to have to figure out how to find her dad, save herself, and learn who she can and can't trust. She's got a lot of challenges to face!
Swamp Devil has some good, but also some bad parts. The major problem I found with it was the sound at the beginning. At 2 minutes and 49 seconds, the sound starts breaking up to the point that it's quite hard to understand what they're saying at some points. This problem lasts until 8 minutes and 20 seconds, or at least that's the last time I noticed it. I have tried 2 discs now, both on a regular DVD player, an Xbox 360, a PS3, and a computer. I know it's less than 6 minutes, but it was still very distracting at the beginning of the movie. It made it very hard to get into the movie.
For the good though, the acting was quite well done. The actors did a really good job with the script and the script was well written. There were even some funny lines throw in, like "He's going tree!" That one in particular made me laugh. Granted there weren't any big mysteries in it. Usually they at least give you more than one person that could potentially be the monster. In this case, I knew what was going to happen from the beginning, but it was still good to watch it unfold.
There aren't any special features on the Swamp Devil DVD, but there are a lot of previews at the beginning (that you have to skip through one at a time). While it's not the best horror movie I've seen in a while, it is a decent one. Granted there's nothing that's really scary about it, so I guess it is more suspense. Anyway, I'd call this one a rental simply because I can't really see a desire for repeat viewing.
