In Bywater, a small marshy town in the southern United States, strange and unsettling events occur: dozens of people have disappeared without a trace and only a few have been found dead, horribly mutilated, in the waters of the swamp. The local population blames an ancient spirit, upset by the environmental degradation operation carried out by the petrochemical industry that discharges its waste into the swamp. When the sheriff also disappears, a young substitute is called in who, with the help of a beautiful ecologist and a strange photographer, will attempt to shed light on the mystery of the black waters of Bywater.
Produced by the mind of Marvel Comics Stan Lee, "Man-Thing" is an unusual horror with a strong ecological spirit, which draws inspiration from the Marvel comic of the same name and little known (in Italy). Some situations and sets of this film may remind the distant Cravenian cousin "Swamp Thing", in turn adapted from the DC Comics comic "Swamp Thing"; but if in the ultra-popular film by Craven, the entire staging tends to the ridiculous (unfortunately not voluntary!) and the technical aspect was rather rudimentary, in "Man-Thing" it was decided to treat the subject with the utmost seriousness and with a certain formal care of a true A-series product. In fact, the real strong point are the suggestive sets that reproduce the dark and unsettling swamps that characterize some areas of the southern United States; also the look of the monster is appreciable: a majestic vegetable creature with the characteristics of a huge tentacled tree, similar to the creatures that populate so many fairy tales and childhood nightmares. The digital special effects, with which the creature was often made, are well done and have absolutely nothing to envy to productions with much higher budgets. Little varied, on the other hand, is the gore department, which from the premises would have made one presume sparks (the introduction with a couple attacked and a boy torn apart), but it limits itself to an autopsy and a little man cut to pieces in the distance (strictly in digital!).
At the helm we find Brett Leonard ("Incubo in corsia"; "Il Tagliaerbe") who does a diligent job without leaving a mark, but who has the merit of transforming a direct-to-video product like "Man-Thing" into a horror of all respect, very different from the classic poor-quality product distributed only for the home video market.
"Man-Thing" is also characterized by some gaps that do not allow the viewer to be fully satisfied; first of all, it is inevitable to notice the non-excellent work that has been done with the screenplay, surely burdened by the difficult task of translating into film a story that would be credible even for the passionate of the original comic. Unfortunately, the enterprise has not succeeded because the characters seen in the film have really nothing to do with those of the comic and even the ecological aura does not always adapt to the themes of the Marvel prototype. Moreover, the characters have not been well cared for because they do not present the minimum of credible psychological construction, having been outlined all with the proverbial axe cut: the good too good, committed to defending just causes (even humanitarian) and the bad too bad (without scruples and ready to pollute the territory to favor their economic interest), in the middle there is "the human thing" that sometimes seems a bit intrusive. Also noteworthy is an excessive redundancy of situations and some dead points that populate the central part of the film, compromising at times the viewer's attention.
Overall, "Man-Thing" can be considered an acceptable product, surely well made from a technical point of view, but penalized by a not very incisive screenplay and by the weight of a paper prototype to which it does not properly adhere. Rounded-up rating for excess.
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