Charles Pierce got some investors together in 1972 and beginning shooting footage in and around Fouke, Arkansas to tell a quasi-documentary story about the cryptid of that area, with the very creative name, "The Fouke Monster". Pierce shot gorgeous footage (all with a 16 mm camera) and conducted interviews with the locals, shot dramatizations of adventures involving the monster, recorded a couple folksy tunes that related to the area dwellers and made a movie out of it.
The Legend of Boggy Creek was born.
Legend is the Billy Jack of "found footage mockumentaries". Despite being made for under 200,000 it grossed 22 million dollars in 1973 and has now become something of a cult classic.
It has its creepy moments, but works just as much as a reflection of rural deep southern life than it does a monster movie. Folks on the internet still speak of the effect this movie had on them to this day, able to remember the realism of the more intense scenes and the horrifying scream the creature made that lilted across the rivers and lakes of the Fouke area (the scream nicely rolls in its full length on the DVD menu). It made the rounds on the big screen, the drive-in, and on TV. I've been hearing about this movie since I was 12, and until last night, Frani and I had yet to see it.
Legend is only available through the Boggy Creek website set up by Charles Pierce's daughter. She now has the rights, and that's a good thing, because I've read that the VHS/DVD copies that have been "available" were all illegal, and looked like hot garbage. The blu-ray she has managed to put together remastered from a mint condition print found at the British Film Institute, has the movie finally looking like it deserves to. It's worth seeing if just for Pierce's gorgeous filming of the area. It holds up against any nature show of its era and may surpass it. It was lovingly shot. Move over, Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
The movie is not a violent Sasquatch murder-fest with blood and guts. It actually achieved a "G" rating. But the mood is set as the monster is kept just enough in the shadows, and the creeps are in the reactions, and the townsfolks' ebbing and flowing panic and fear. The happenings may be dramatizations of actual events, but it all feels a tad more realistic than some of the things you see on television docudramas in this day and age.
Now, if you feel it's a bit corny, or dated, then see it for its historical importance. This was an era when making, let alone releasing, an independent film was a serious and difficult undertaking, and credit is due.
Shoot, you should order one of these pristine new copies, while available, if not just for the killer mailer they come in.
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