20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (1916)

An epic of watery glory in this classic adaptation of Jules Verne’s masterpiece. Directed by Stuart Paton, and starring Lois Alexander, Curtis Benton, Wallace Clarke, Howard Crampton among others, and with undersea shots filmed in the Bahamas, which explains the crystal clear depths even in this silent, black and white version, even though no actual underwater cameras were used, as watertight tubes and mirrors allowed such actions. For many, this adaptation was a landmark for special effects despite it lacking much of the punch of the novel and seems to lean slightly more to Verne’s Mysterious Island book. It’s flat direction leaves a lot to be desired.

2/5

A Midnight Episode (1899)

A French short film, with the title of UN BON LIT, this obscure silent movie directed by George Melies, is possibly one of the first ever giant insect productions. It is a strangely quirky, surreal and comical piece in which a man sleeping, under the glare of the moon, is awakened suddenly as a giant bug crawling over him. He destroys the critter only to see three more of the hideous forms scuttling up the wall, which he tends to with candle flame, causing the insects to explode. After the weird ordeal, the man then casually slips back into bed and contentedly dozes back to sleep.

3/5

The Legend Of Boggy Creek (1972)

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