Swamp of the Ravens is a film for which my experience is clouded with nostalgia. Oddly (or perhaps not so oddly) it is not due to a previous viewing of the film itself, but rather my conception of it, along with a semi-accurate description and a few minuscule images. Before the irritating (although admittedly helpful in acquiring certain out-of-print titles) resurgence in interest in films where the dead get up and kill (the people they kill, get up and kill…), there were very few places from which one could obtain information about the more obscure films featuring the undead.
Regardless, as a thirteen-year-old embarking on yet another trail of hyper-focused interest, a now defunct website (Undeadfilms.com) became the center from which much of my cinematic and monetary activity spread. With the exception of the myriad SOV pictures released throughout the 90s, Swamp of the Ravens remained the the last film from my original investigations I had yet to watch.
The film itself is comparable to the more minor entries in the Italian exploitation cannon. Attempts to brand the picture as "no-budget" or "amateur" misrepresent the film, at least within the context of general exploitation film-making. The techical crew apparently had some experience in these pictures (the same cannot be said for the actors or scriptwriter, but to an extent this simply made the film more entertaining). To my admittedly unrefined perception the shot composition was mostly well balanced, and the lighting was far from terrible.
Other general descriptions of the film tend to describe the nonsensical aspects of the plot, and its apparent convolution. Perhaps I am jaded, but I personally found the film a fairly straightforward Reanimator rip-off with occasional endearing weirdness.
What confused me much more than the plot was the bizarre english soundtrack. Voices are rarely anywhere close to matching the lips supposedly generating them, implying (or rather directly stating, out of sync) that the film was redubbed. However, there are elements that strongly suggest the film was made in English. Most prominently this manifests itself in a song already guaranteed a spot on the next WZ&SC mixtape. The track in question is sung to the Mad Scientist's inevitable Frankenstein bride, as the singer (involved in a love triangle with the other two) completes a world tour apparently consisting of several people standing around in a room at every show. Sample lyrics include "Don't stare at me with those eyes of horror/you've thrown out my love for you to the houndogs" "The blood flowing lifeless from your body/Wherever you find yourself I wish you were dead/My own Robot, my own my lady"
If in fact this track was added in the dubbing process it implies a more extensive translation process than one would expect this type of film to get. It also begs the question, What was he singing in the Spanish dub?
Aside from a flubbed conclusion and a rather hilarious scene where the police tracking star Ramiro Oliveros by employing an instrument used more famously by a very different Oliveros (A sine wave oscillator, and Pauline, respectively), the film isn't particularly remarkable. The mis-en-scene surrounding the mad doctor's hut is effective, and the film moves along at a glacial, but not insufferable pace. For completists and weirdos, luckily, we fit into both categories.
*Note this is a Spanish/ Ecuadorian co-production, not the usual Italian exploitation we generally cover.
**Apparently SOTR contains real autopsy footage. I honestly couldn't tell what was an effect and what wasn't, adding a degree of ambiguity/verisimilitude. Either way, you've been warned.
-Ryan
