Evil is a Strong Word.

My intention to see out February with a final serial killer flick was thwarted by the fragility of analog media so TBD on that one. That meant I had to pivot to the next VHS off the pile, and another one from my recent jaunt to that antique warehouse, in Burt Kennedy's 1974 movie Evil in the Swamp.

A traveling photojournalist (Stacy Keach) picks up a young hitchhiker (Tim Parkison) and after taking him home to his family finds himself trapped in their company.

This will be a shorter one folks, as this was pretty plain. Keach was good in this role, maybe not as memorable as his turns in Road Games and The Gravy Train or even Class of 1999, but he steered the shp in what is a fairly straightforward and pedestrian script. Evil in the Swamp was painfully PG, and only real horror I experienced was from watching Keach absolutely cook his Chevy driving over all that uneven ground. Also, his red eyes on the coverbox are not my camera, they actually look like that for no discernable reason at all.

It was of no surprise to me to discover this originally aired as a Movie of the Week on ABC as All The Kind Strangers. A more apt title and the family in this story was by no means evil. Misguided, yes. Neglected, absolutely. And sure, they may have offed a couple of people and hid their cars ala Texas Chainsaw, but it didn't seem like there was anything intentionally malevolent going on. The television nature of it would explain why something so blasé would be able to land names like Stacy Keach and Samantha Eggar, who really didn't get to do much here. Maybe I'm overvaluing them I dunno.

Samantha Eggar & Stacy Keach in Evil in the Swamp.

Director Burt Kennedy was a seasoned pro who worked mostly on westerns, and with the help of two(!) cinematographers banged this out pretty workmanlike. At the end of the day, Evil in the Swamp just isn't all that memorable. The teleplays from my childhood in the early eighties seemed way more lurid and nightmare inducing, Don't Go To Sleep and Deadly Lessons come to mind. However, I'm not going to knock it too bad, this movie is surely not the first TV movie that got renamed and repackaged for video store shelves. Oh well, onto the next!