FAQ

Government agent Alice Cable (Adrienne Barbeau) arrives at a laboratory in the Louisiana swamp just as Dr Alec Holland (Ray Wise) and his sister Linda (Nannette Brown) have successfully developed a hybrid of animal and plant capable of thriving in extreme environments. Unfortunately, the ruthless Dr Anton Arcane (Louis Jourdan) wants to get his hands on the formula because he thinks it will make him immortal. Arcane's thugs raid the lab, murder Linda, set the lab on fire, and steal the formula but spill it on Alec. Totally ablaze, Alec jumps in the swamp where he transforms into a plant creature. As the mutated Swamp Thing (Dick Durock), Alec returns to protect Alice and to battle against Arcane's forces.

The movie is based on a DC Comic book character created by American writer Len Wein and illustrator Bernie Wrightson, first appearing in House of Secrets #92 (June-July 1971). The screenplay was written by American film-maker Wes Craven (who also directed the movie). The film was subsequently adapted in comic book form as Swamp Thing Annual #1 (1982), written by Bruce Jones. A movie sequel, The Return of Swamp Thing (1989), was released in 1989.

The film was cut by two nude scenes in order to get a PG rating and was then shown like this in the theaters. The later VHS editions are equal to this version. When the movie was released for the first time on DVD in 2000, they obviously didn't notice that they had just released the uncut version with a PG rating instead of the theatrical version. This blooper only came to light when an outraged mother made a complaint, because she let her kids watch the movie and thought that it was the mild version of the movie, which should be the case when there's a PG rating on the cover. The label acted immediately and released the DVD again, but this time the correct version.