Brilliant and touching

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Rather than pay actors to tell a story, a new art form was created with The Legend of Boggy Creek. I guess you could call it a Faux Documentary with real folks from the piney woods of southwest Arkansas telling of their story with a Bigfoot type creature.This film has become something of a cult item. It shows that folks with absolutely no talent at all can get in front of a camera and just simply be themselves. For that reason I can't really criticize those in the film. It's not bad acting, it's no acting at all.Some apparently found some entertainment value in the Boggy Creek saga. I did not.

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. :}

The Legend of Boggy Creek is one of my favorite films of all time. The first time I saw it was late at night on a local station. I grew up in a town very similar to the one in this film, so I felt a personal connection watching these (mostly) real people at real locations instead of the usual Hollywood sets or big city backdrops. Watching late at night by myself provided the perfect setting to experience this film for the first time. The sights and sounds of the swamp are so much creepier that way.The movie is a docudrama about the Fouke Monster. Fouke is in Arkansas and this film details the sightings of a Bigfoot-like creature in the area known as Boggy Creek. The creature is normally shy but, for some reason, it appears to be becoming more aggressive towards livestock and humans. This movie features mostly real people "acting" and as such will divide the audience. Using real people added an extra layer of authenticity to the story, in my opinion. How can anybody not like Travis Crabtree?!?Charles B. Pierce, who produced and directed this movie, has long been one of my favorite low-budget directors. He made several films that were actually good despite their limitations. And yes, he made some clunkers that were good for unintended laughs only. But all of the films of his that I have seen have been interesting at least. Boggy Creek is his first film and it epitomizes the talent Pierce had. He certainly had original ideas and a distinct style. It's difficult to deny when watching this film that Pierce creates an eerie, unsettling, atmosphere. He takes his time and paces the film well, soaking up the local color and scenery. Adding to the film's ambiance is a creepy score and some great folksy ballads. I know this is the type of film cynics and smug punks like to mock and feel superior to, all the while praising the merits of the latest overproduced blockbuster. I also realize my personal connection to the film influences my judgment of it. I would just implore anybody who is trying to decide whether to watch it to give it a shot with an open mind. Accept it for what it is, not what it isn't. This really is an excellent unique film. Beautiful in its way. The current score on IMDb is insulting. If even one person is turned off of trying this movie as a result of the misleading score, that's truly a shame. This is a one-of-a-kind film everyone should see.

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.