Thirteen Nights of Marvel Frights: Man-Thing

To kick off our Halloween series exploring Marvel monsters and horror coded films I chose to start at the bottom (of the swamp.) Back in 2005 before the MCU, Marvel film projects were spread across a wide range of studios. Lion’s Gate, responsible for the maligned Punisher films, attempted to bring one of Stan Lee’s most iconic monsters to the screen with Man-Thing. In the original comics, Dr. Ted Sallis injects himself with a prototype super soldier serum at his lab in a magical Florida swamp and gets trapped in the muck thus merging is body with the swamp creating a nearly mindless creature made of man and vegetation. The character goes on to team up with Marvel heroes to do good. The major flaw in this film is that Director Brett Leonard retcons the Man-Thing as a Seminole spirit rampaging against an oil company drilling in the sacred dark water bog. For an avenging spirit he pretty much kills indiscriminately both the good guys and bad, loosing any semblance of heroism.  Instead he just shoves branches up and into anything that walks (seriously, that’s how he kills.) 

Originally slated for the big screen, the production was smartly dumped onto the SYFY channel. There was a limited international theatrical release where it promptly bombed. It’s no wonder due to the low budget effects, poor creature design, and wooden acting. While the campiness of DC’s Swamp Thing propelled it to 80’s monster gold, there is hardly any humor in this film which takes itself too seriously. Most surprising is that both Stan Lee and Kevin Feige’s involved as Executive Producers did nothing to save it. The score by Roger Mason is serviceable and helps to elevate a few scenes. The swamp location is sufficiently creepy although curiously devoid of any alligators or snakes. A cacophony of swamp animal noises attempts to fill in for the real things. I guess animal handlers weren’t in the budget. Honestly not a lot was, and the result is a half hearted effort to bring one of my favorite Marvel monsters to the screen. Good thing he cameos in Werewolf by Night years later as the lovable pile of muck we all know.