This film is the sole reason as to why for many years I've looked into the folklore of monsters. It is also the reason many cryptozoologists do what they do, and also the reason as to why films such as 'The Blair Witch Project' exist. 'The Legend Of Boggy Creek' is also the reason as to why this blog has begun. Several years ago I wrote two exhaustive articles for Animals & Men magazine on cryptozoology-related movies, commercials, tv shows etc. This blog is the world's first website on such things, so there's no better place to start than with this Charles B. Pierce movie, probably my favourite film of all time which, to this day, maintains its eeriness and splendour. Rumour has it that director Charles Pierce borrowed $160,000 from a trucking company to shoot this movie...little did he realise it would go on to make over $20 million and become one of the greatest cult films ever made. It tells a simple story which, in fragments is based on fact, centering upon the river bottoms of Arkansas, particularly the area known as Fouke. Many of the actors in the movie are actually real witnesses to a hairy, bipedal creature that has roamed the swamps for many, many years. They've heard it scream, they've seen the livestock kills, and others have seen it walking in the shadows. Is is a relation to Bigfoot, or something smaller ? Whatever the case, this film plays along like a documentary and that's where its unintentional crackly weirdness come out, inspiring movie after movie, but never being equalled. The real story revolved around local man Smokey Crabtree who lived and hunted in the Arkansas swamps. He never saw the creature which would go on to become known as the Fouke Monster, but he heard it scream. Of course, the film doesn't strictly stick to the facts, in the end the man-beast becomes rather agitated by its surroundings and several people shooting at it, but this isn't churned out like a typical horror movie, instead it has an eerie narration, excellent acting when you consider these are people thrown in at the deep end, and it comes across a little like one of those creaky old Arthur C. Clarke documentaries.
To this day '...Boggy Creek' remains scary, and for me is beyond criticism because as cryptozoological movies go, none will better this drive-in classic. Although sequels were spawned, the original remains the kind of film everyone has always attempted to make. The film should have even been bigger, but it didn't do bad did it ?
'The Legend Of boggy Creek', the finest example of a cryptozoological movie.
5/5
2 comments:
Located your blog via Nick Redfern's "There's something in the woods..." Glad to read it! look forward to more titles being reviewed.
Enjoyed your praise of "Legend of Boggy Creek." It was a pretty formative movie for me too. I grew up in Memphis and attended my undergrad college in Arkansas (and had visited that state often on mini-vacations w/my family), so there was an automatic interest in the concept of "Bigfoot" in my own backyard, so to speak. (interesting aside, I don't believe the term Bigfoot is ever used in TLOBC) And first watching it at the tender age of six or seven, it scared the crap outta me- but like any good horror movie, I wanted to watch it all over again when it was done!
I've read many reviews of that film in print and online and have been struck by how much kinder the cryptozoology enthusiasts have been to the movie than traditional horror fans. To me it actually works better w/the suspension of disbelief, thus undercutting the documentary angle. However, it seems that reviewers from the genre-perspective couldn't get past the acting in the dramatizations, nor the portrayal of rural Southern life (by a native small-town Arkansan [Pierce], no less!). Many Bigfoot enthusiasts such as myself that typically apply a strict standard of accepting eyewitness reports (e.g., presence of physical evidence at the scene) have forgiven TLOBC for deviating from what actually happened (or didn't as documented in Smokey Crabtree's book). We do this because of the film's having inspired us. I actually feel sorry for those individuals who try to apply rigors of "standard" movie production to TLOBC. In doing so, they forget what art's supposed to be-- viewed and appreciated through the eye of the beholder, rather than held to calculated convention.
Great idea for blog!
I agree with awt about my personal impression of BC as opposed to those who see it as a "bad horror movie".
I live and grew up in rural North Alabama, and I remember when BC played at the drive-in, the back roads and woods were empty of teenagers for weeks afterward.
(so, any chance you'll be featuring a certain series of movies about giant subterranean worms in the Nevada desert?)
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