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Between 1998 and 2008, comic book movies went through a genuinely experimental decade. Blade proved that comic book adaptations could work, although, to be honest, it was marketed more as a Wesley Snipes action movie than a comic book movie. Then X-Men and Spider-Man took the genre to the next level, turning superheroes into seemingly safe investments for Hollywood studios. But not every movie could replicate that success, and the 2000s also gave us some spectacular misfires, including Catwoman, Daredevil, and Elektra. And then there’s one movie so bad and so forgotten that you’ve probably never even heard of it, like 2005’s Man-Thing.
For those unfamiliar with Man-Thing, Man-Thing is Marvel’s swamp-themed character, much like DC’s Swamp Thing, but instead of being a traditional hero, he is more of a slasher-type supernatural creature, taking out anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path in the swamp. The character has been around since the 1970s and has developed a cult following over the years, but he has never exactly reached the same level of mainstream recognition as Spider-Man, the X-Men, or even Swamp Thing. So, naturally, in the mid-2000s, someone in Hollywood decided this obscure swamp monster was ripe for his very own movie.
Made on a budget of, my guess is, $100, Man-Thing is a gloriously low-budget movie shot in Australia, featuring an entirely Australian cast doing their best Cajun accents. The story mostly revolves around a new-in-town sheriff investigating a series of disappearances connected to the swamp. To really make the movie look authentic, the filmmakers also decided to drench the entire thing in a green-and-yellow color filter, because apparently nothing says “swamp” quite like making the whole movie look like it was filmed through a bottle of Mountain Dew.
To be honest, the opening scene of Man-Thing looks somewhat promising. It features model Imogen Bailey wanting to have some sexy time with a man in the swamp, complete with some nudity. But in true slasher fashion, the scene ends with her man being skewered and then abducted by an unseen creature. Cue the credits. It looks cheap, the accents don’t hold up, but if this is going to be a skin flick with a swamp monster, it might at least be interesting to watch. I never associated Marvel with boobs, but here we are.
Sadly, those are the only boobs we ever get to see, and the rest of the movie is about as sanitized as you would expect, save for some gory scenes where the corpses of Man-Thing’s victims are examined. Man-Thing likes to do his thing off-screen, as he barely has any screen time in a movie literally named after him. We don’t get our first proper glimpse of him until around an hour into the movie, and the only time he is really allowed to take center stage is during the finale. By that point, it’s far too little, far too late.
If there’s ever a sign that a movie is boring, it’s when I start checking every five minutes or so to see how much longer I have to suffer. I started doing that around 20 minutes into Man-Thing, meaning I still had more than an hour to go. “But why didn’t you just turn it off?” I hear you ask. Because I can’t review a movie I’ve only seen a quarter of. So I endured the full thing, and my suffering is all for you, my dear reader.
If you want to watch a terrible movie, then Man-Thing is just the movie for you. Sadly, it never reaches that magical level of being so bad that it becomes good, and no amount of boobs could have saved this movie. Though, to be fair, they certainly would have made the experience a little more bearable.
