Matrixston
Wow! Such a good movie.
BroadcastChic
Excellent, a Must See
ActuallyGlimmer
The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Nayan Gough
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
wisconsinator
"Something came through here last night and killed my two prize shoats." I remember going home after seeing the movie in 1972, to look up what was a shoat. It is a young weaned pig. Yes, the music is hokey, or corny, but it sets a logical tone for this film. The man who is near rating it, should be near rating for a living, because he has such a perfect voice for it. The sound of "the creature" vocalizing reminds me of a bear.Here's a song sung about the creature:The Legend of Boggy Creek"
Lyrics and Music: Earl E. Smith
Sung by: Chuck BryantThis is where the story plays,
A world on which we seldom gaze,
A page from the book of yesterdays,
Birds and beast and wind and water.Here beneath the bright blue sky,
No man smoke blinds the eagle's eye.
And things that crawl or swim or fly,
Feed and breed and live and die.Here the sulfur river flow,
Rising when the storm cloud blows.
And this is where the creature goes,
Safe within a world he knows.Perhaps he dimly wonders why,
There is no other such as I.
To touch, to love, before I die,
To listen to my lonely cry.
djeheuty
As far as I am aware, this film is the first of it's kind, pre-dating "The Blair Witch Project". Although, this "Boggy Creek" is a 'mockumentary' and not 'found footage'.It deserves more accolades than it gets for this fact and that it was also a successful low-budget effort that surprised the industry. The follow up sequel to this picture is worth missing although I would recommend the _Mystery Science Theater 3000_ send-up of it.
a_baron
If there is one word that sums up this film, it is boring. Presented in documentary format, it is only in the last twenty minutes or so there is any action. One does not expect action as such in a documentary, but neither does one expect to be sent to sleep.In spite of this being the legend of Boggy Creek we are left in no doubt that the creature is supposed to be very real, based loosely as it is on genuine sightings, that is genuine as reported, not genuine as the creature is real. What does it want, why is it attacking us? Well, if you shoot at the poor thing and especially if you wound it, you can't really expect it to want to make friends. Granted this film was made on a low budget with an amateur cast, but it still leaves much to be desired. The music isn't bad, but that is only to be expected as it was commissioned from a professional composer.
Coventry
If I had to be the total opposite of objective – even more opposite than, say, subjective – I would be just prejudiced and grant impeccable ratings to ALL films directed by Charles B. Pierce. I adore this man and his lovable low-budgeted filming style. His films "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" and "The Evictors" rank highly amongst my favorite 70's flicks because they're extremely atmospheric and creepy. That's also why I was looking forward to "The Legend of Boggy Creek" so much! This is supposed to be a semi-documentary slash horror film with a slow brooding atmosphere and loads of beautiful environmental footage. Right up Mr. Pierce's alley, in other words. "The Legend of Boggy Creek" is also a sort of pioneer, as it single-handedly started a short but nevertheless vivid trend in exploitation/drive-in cinema, namely the bigfoot- sasquatch-abominable snowman hype! Since this movie was such an unexpectedly large success at the drive-in theaters (the 7th highest grossing film of 1972!), there suddenly came dozen of similar flicks with bloodthirsty swamp monsters. If it weren't for good old Boggy, there never would have been a "Creature from the Black Lake", "Snowbeast", "Shriek of the Mutilated", "Night of the Demon", "Sasquatch" and so on. The narrator is proud to welcome us to Fouke; a cozy small Arkansas town close to Louisiana and Texas. Fouke is a great place to live
until the sun goes down. The narrator is born and raised in Fouke, and he first heard the screams of the monster when he was seven years old. The nearby Boggy Creek is reputedly the turf of a big hairy monster that all the Fouke inhabitants know about. The documentary approach works reasonably effective, but gets dull rather fast. The narrator often emphasizes that the "the monster is lurking
" or that "the monster is always there
", but nothing actually happens. After a while, you subconsciously begin to finish the narrator's sentences like "
but it never moves a damn muscle!". Here's what "The Legend of Boggy Creek" has got plenty of: footage of trees, flying ducks, still lakes, relaxing country music, eagles, tortoises, boy scouts picnicking, pitiable old hermits murmuring about their connection with the swamps and detailed shots of a isolated tool shed in the woods. Once every twenty minutes or so, there's the occasional distant shot of a guy in a secondhand gorilla suit that may or not be the Fouke Monster. My money's on "may not be". The closest we get to witnessing a bigfoot attack is when some girl sees something through the window and instantaneously goes into shock. The next thing the narrator says is that the animal smashed some flowerpots before wandering off. He did what? Smashed flowerpots?!? Oh the horror, the awful awful horror! I still like Charles B. Pierce and his repertoire, but I do very much wonder how come this film could possibly have been so popular amongst the drive-in theater crowds? Absolutely nothing happens here? Perhaps it's just that. Nothing even remotely exciting happens during "The Legend of Boggy Creek", so they could fully focus on making out in the backseat.