Review: The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

Sometimes, a movie is pure nostalgia, a comforting blanket that - even if scary - takes you back to childhood, sitting around a campfire or in a dark room and telling your friends creepy stories, each of you trying to outdo one another.  Nothing too terrible, but tales of creatures in the woods, or ghosts in the attic, something that doesn't cause you to jump, but instead works its way into your skin and settles there.  It fades, as does childhood, and though it might never again cause you to stay up all night terrified of every sound, the memory of it lingers, striking you at random moments and making you feel like a scared child again, if only briefly.  The Legend of Boggy Creek is such a film for me.

Made by the legendary regional director Charles B. Pierce, The Legend of Boggy Creek is a shot in a documentary style, interviewing residents of Fouke, Arkansas as they talk about the local Bigfoot-like creature that wanders the area and the terror it causes.  Several reenactments of encounters are displayed, guided by narration from Vern Stierman, as the viewer learns of the ever-escalating appearances, and later attacks, that petrifies those who encounter it.

This low budget film - made for $160,000, eventually grossing over $20 million - used local residents, often portraying themselves or relatives, to give the movie an air of authenticity, and it works wonders.  A child watching this - and indeed, I was a child the first time I saw this movie - would readily believe this tale as only a child can: Woods are mysterious, and who's to say something monstrous doesn't live somewhere deep into them?  And if parts of it look fake, or threadbare, well this is just a tale of the monster, not the actual thing.

It really is amazing that this is a first film.  Pierce, who would direct thirteen other films and assist in the making of others, shows a natural talent for setting up shots, building tension, and using his location.  He actually worked many behind-the-scenes roles, serving as cinematographer (and nailing it) and as producer.  This movie feels instinctual, almost as if the camera just accidentally caught something magic, which speaks to the talent and effort of everyone behind the camera.

Rewatching it some 30 years later, I am amazed at how well it holds up.  I talked of the effect of this film in the first paragraph, and all these years later I can still feel the terror of the night after I watched this movie - like a scar I had forgotten about and then noticed in the mirror.  Everything about this film works, and things that would normally be a strike against it - some wooden acting or the look of the creature - somehow instead work in its favor to make it seem that much more authentic.

I really cannot recommend this film enough, to anyone.  It is very much in the same vein as 1963's The Haunting or The Conjuring, more creepy than scary, but damn if it doesn't work just as well as those other films.

8.5 out of 10