Scary Movies: Man-Thing

MAN-THING (2005)
Here’s a movie that counts as both a horror film and a comic book movie. I’ll do it as a comic movie in a later post. I’m a big fan of the Man-Thing, especially his first comic series from the mid-1970s. It’s set in a small town in the Florida everglades, where an ancient Indian site in the neighboring swamp has spawned a creature to protect it against the encroachments of modern industrialized society. I’ll say right now this movie got some of the basics right but did not nearly capture enough of the weirdness of the comic in its heyday. By the way, this movie has nudity and gore and is not suitable for children.

MAN-THING (2005)

Story/Plot/Characters–One thing I really hate in movies is when Hollywood actors fake a Southern accent. The southern accents in this movie are terrible. Characters are thin (why did they do away with the nuanced characters in the comic?) and dialogue is god-awful. Still, the pacing moves well and the plot is mostly coherent. (1 point)
Special Effects–Some decent effects, but not anything to write home about. (1 point)
Scariness–If you rely on gore rather than suspense, you should really actually have more gore. (.5 point)
Atmosphere/Freakiness–Actually some fairly atmospheric scenes in the swamp and the oil refinery on the edge of town. (1.5 points)
Total=4 points