Director Charles B. Pierce was a bit of a trend-setter with THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN in '76 which was an early slasher type flick and this one which kind of sets down the blueprint for the whole pseudo-documentary thing that became popular with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. In addition to that it's also an early example of a Bigfoot movie which became quite a popular genre throughout the rest of the 70's. He smartly used a bunch of non-actors and shot in a fairly straight-forward documentary style with reenactments of supposedly actual events which only adds to the realism. It also reminds me a bit of that show IN SEARCH OF... which it also predates.
The monster itself is technically not a Bigfoot since he lives in the swamps of Arkansas and seems more soggy but their aren't many differences besides that. The movie itself seems a bit over long since there's really no plot and just a bunch of little scenes of monster shenanigans but it is a fun spooky watch and I do recall catching this when I was younger on a TV showing and being a little creeped out by the whole thing thanks to the overall atmosphere created. My favorite scene has got to be the guy trying to take a shit until the old bog monster interrupts him. The main negative for me would be the terrible folk-songs that pop up during the movie that could have been shortened and cut down on that running time a bunch.
Amazingly this movie was a huge box-office hit and packed drive-ins all over for a while after it was released. It was also the 7th highest grossing movie of 1976 which is incredible for something that looks like it was shot in someone's swampy, woodsy backyard. It was truly the time of real independent film-making where anyone with enough guts to try and make a movie had a shot. Too bad those days are long gone.
There was a RETURN TO BOGGY CREEK in '77 which didn't really have anything to do with this one and a BOGGY CREEK II in '85 also directed by Pierce, which I've only seen on MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER and it seemed pretty awful. There's also a couple of more recent BOGGY CREEKS(including this piece of crap here: BOGGY CREEK) but I'm gonna stick with the original.
I've never warmed to this movie as others have. I think it's mostly due to the fact that the only version I've seen is the horribly crappy copy on archive.org. It had some creepy moments and others that are mind boggling dull.
ReplyDeleteIt might just be one of those movies that you had to have seen when you were a kid at the right age for it to adequately effect you.
ReplyDeleteIt still amazes me that this movie made so much money back in the 70's. What a weird time that was.