The spirit of shot-on-video horror is alive and well in this digital age. The technology has changed, but the lack of resources, and the ambitions of independent filmmakers, has not.
Writer, director, and producer Robert Elkins, hailing from the Commonwealth of Virginia, began making movies back in 2007, and his highest rated on IMDb is a short that currently scores a 5.5. That’s not good on a site where scores skew towards favorable, regardless of a film’s quality. So, when today’s movie, Alien Swamp Beast, holds a 3.1 rating, one can be sure that the movie is a load of crap.
A meteorite has come crashing to earth, landing in a swamp in Middle-of-Nowhere, USA. Billy (David Jones), an intellectually disabled farmer’s son, heads off into the swamp to try and find the space rock. He’s joined by a character listed only as ‘The Girl’ (Alyssa Wheaton). Meanwhile, a gang of bank robbers, led by Johnny Arcane (Kenny Andrews), has carried out a daring daylight robbery and fled into the swamp to avoid capture. The situation is serious enough that the FBI has called in agent Alex Holland (Tony Jones) from vacation to track down the criminals. He’s joined by agent Emily Conners (Sara Bella), and no one else, because there obviously wasn’t any money available for more cast. It’s off into the swamp they go, and all the principals have now been assembled.
The preceding paragraph is guilty of normalizing a movie and plot that is anything but. Acting, pacing, story — it’s all bad. It’s bottom feeding dreck, in fact. But Elkins seemed to know that. The movie is about as self-aware as any one will see at the bottom of the Shitty Movie Sundays Watchability Index. This is never more apparent than 
in scenes featuring news reports of the pivotal bank robbery (we never see the actual bank robbery). The reporter, Linda Kelly (uncredited), flubs her lines constantly, in an endearing first take sort of way. In one report, she even signs off using the name ‘Sabrina,’ probably her real name, before quickly correcting herself. That’s some quality shitty filmmaking.
The main problem with this movie isn’t the general lack of skill, but the lack of monster. This flick may be called Alien Swamp Beast, but most of the movie is Johnny and his gang wandering around the wilderness, with the FBI agents not far behind. There are long setup scenes, including a clichéd introduction to Holland’s grizzled cop life, that do nothing but add running time. The shame is, once the creature appears, it’s pretty neat. Elkins may not have had two nickels to rub together, but the creature suit he created is better than in many other cheap movies I’ve seen. There should have been more monster in this monster flick.
Alien Swamp Beast is the cheapest of the cheap. If a viewer comes across this movie, they were probably looking for it. It takes a certain type of horror fan to like Alien Swamp Beast. If any of the stupid monster flicks that SyFy shows are too bad for one’s tastes, then this flick will probably be offensive. There’s a case to be made that it’s more playing at being a movie rather than being an actual creative effort. Pshaw, Missile Test says. The world of film is enriched when movies like this are added. It’s unpretentious garbage, it never takes itself seriously, and it looks like the people in it had fun making it. All that said, the most competent thing about this movie is that it was made at all. Alien Swamp Beast falls way down into the nether reaches of the Index, displacing Paranormal Investigation at #523. This is one for movie masochists only.