The Legend of Boggy Creek

One of my brothers took a girl he really liked to see "The Legend of Boggy Creek" on their first date in 1972. She never went out with him again. Word to the wise.

This is basically a pseudo-documentary with incredibly cheesy music ("Hey there, Travis Crabtree," a local lad is serenaded as he travels to the home of a slackjawed yokel whose name escapes me, but not the fact that he shot off his own foot). As for the "Creature Theme," my brother and I took great delight in parodizing the lyrics:

This is where the creature goes / when he needs to blow his nose

etc. etc. etc. and other preteen humor (?).

But for your basic seventies celebration of Middle American white trash culture, it just doesn't get any better than this. Young girls in curlers, alone in the trailer with a big hairy creature stalking around outside! Cats meeting horrible fates just from espying said creature! Corn-pone accents galore! NOW how much would you pay?

I will go ahead and say I realize that the songs featured in this movie are absolute cheese. This really takes away from an otherwise realistic documentary like film.

It's really moody and atmospheric, you really come to believe that the things you are seeing in the film are real.

There are also some very funny moments like toothless old men talking about the creature. The songs I mentioned before are a real hoot. But overall, this isn't a film I watch for a few giggles. It's quite an interesting film. I've never seen the sequels, but hope to some day.

It's not for all tastes, but for the fan of 70's horror nostalgia, it can't be missed.

Minor drive-in classic from B movie director Charles B. Pierce that's made in the style of a documentary.

For years the folks of Fouke, Arkansas have had encounters with a terrifying Big Foot-type creature that dwells in the local swamps.

Director Pierce well over comes his low-budget limitations on this film by giving it some terrific atmosphere. It's a great narrative documentary that benefits from the use of the raw back woods locations of Arkansas, which gives off a great feeling moodiness and the unknown. It also conveys a nicely authentic look at the rural culture. The movie really has no plot, but there are some truly dark re-enactment sequences that boast some great tension!

The cast is composed of locals who often portray themselves, adding call the more to the documentary feel.

Over all, Ledgend of Boggy Creek is an interesting and occasionally creepy piece of film-making.

*** out of ****

The Legend of Boggy Creek - like so many 'cult classics' - is a great example of how a film can carry a low critical rating and still be awesome.

I remember seeing this film in Roger's Theater in the (then little) town of Poplar Bluff, Missouri - the nearest town to where I grew up, in very wooded, lakeside, Wappapello. So, I actually DID live in the same sort of woodsy, lakeside spookiness setting the film. Where I grew up, the word 'neighbor' meant the 'nearest house' and often you couldn't see their lights - or they may even be a nervous flashlight-trek through the pitch-black woods and along lonely, moonlit, gravel roads - and if the Fouke Monster happened to be tearing you apart out behind your place, they MIGHT hear your loudest screams. Probably not - and definitely not, if he got INSIDE.

My pal and I got brought into town by my Grandma and dropped off outside the Roger's that night. Having been lured-in by the short, terrifying trailers on TV, we anxiously bought our tickets and headed for the center-front seats, shoving and prodding each other over our mutual certainty that the other would get a scare that would make him pee his pants.

I can still remember ourselves - along with many others - cringing and ducking through several parts of this movie. As far as me and Bruce were concerned, to our eleven-year-old brains, the (then novel) documentary-like presentation and 'I-Sweah-Befo'-Gawd-Awmitey' testimony just seemed ALL too plausible - and real. We both KNEW people like those!

Leaving the theater in shudders from flashes of snarling memories - and a new and real dread of returning to the remoteness of where we both lived - we climbed into the big, crimson-velor back seat my Grandma's Delta 88, wordless and white. To us, that Fouke Monster was REAL - and not only that, but it - or one just like it - could easily be living in the endless woods behind our very own houses!

This film is a treasure for several reasons, not the least of which is the nostalgia it will hold for those of us to who got to see it at that perfect, naive age when it hits a kid exactly the way it was intended to - it's the perfect 'scary movie' for preteen sleepovers.

I can watch it now and roll my eyes, of course, but, when I reminisce back to that darkened, all-enveloping theater, so many of us gasping, crying out, grabbing our armrests and jumping in unison - and the nighttime nervousness for a week, afterward... it still makes me smile. :}

This film sparked a great interest in Bigfoot, and is definitely worth checking out. It is probably the best or most beloved movie on the subject, because it is done with a lot of heart, especially for Arkansas and the Texarkana area. The songs are also quite memorable, although they are definitely on the homespun side. The people are also very real, and the scares are equally authentic. Charles PIerce is actually a pretty good film maker, when he puts his mind to it ("Winterhawk" was also quite good). But the sequels are probably best avoided, unless you enjoy the comedy factor of bad films. Since viewing this film, my brothers and friends actually wanted to go find the Bigfoot. We also started a collection of books and literature on the subject. There are a number of documentaries on the creature, and those are worth seeking out. But if you want the definitive film, with a genuine love for the animal and his environs, get this one. Then watch out where you paddle, because "he always travels the creeks.."