The Legend of Boggy Creek

I’m giving a talk this evening in Pennsylvania entitled “Boggy Creek, Bigfoot, and Beyond.”

It truly is amazing how many people say they were inspired to go into Bigfooting based upon seeing this film. Where you one of them? Did you see this film in your youth, when it first came out, at a drive-in movie theater? Where?

Here’s the basic general background that most people have on the Fouke Monster films.

The Legend of Boggy Creek is a 1972 docudrama about the “Fouke Monster“, a Bigfoot-type creature that has been seen in and around Fouke, Arkansas since the 1950s. The film mixes staged interviews with some local residents who claim to have encountered the creature, along with fictitious reenactments of said encounters. Charles B. Pierce, an advertising salesman from Texarkana on the Arkansas/Texas border, borrowed over $100,000 from a local trucking company, used an old movie camera and hired locals (mainly high school students) to help make the 90-minute film. It has generated approximately $20 million in revenue and can be found on DVD.

The film, based on a true story, sets out to detail the existence of the “Fouke Monster“, a bigfoot-like creature that has reportedly been seen by residents of a small Arkansas community since the 1950s. It is described as having a foul odor, completely covered in reddish-brown hair and having three toes and also known by leaving tracks found in beanfields.

Several locals from the small town of Fouke, Arkansas recall their stories, often appearing as themselves, claiming that the creature has killed several large hogs as well as other animals. In one scene, a kitten is shown as having been “scared to death” by the creature. The narrator informs us that while people have shot at the creature in the past, it has always managed to escape. In another scene, hunters attempt to pursue the creature with dogs, but the dogs refuse to give chase. A police constable states that while driving home one night, the creature suddenly ran across the road in front of him.

In a later sequence, culled from the actual newspaper accounts inspiring the film, the creature is shown menacing a family in a remote country house. After being fired upon, the creature attacks, sending one family member to the hospital.

A 1977 sequel, Return to Boggy Creek, was directed by Tom Moore. It carries over none of the original’s docudrama elements. It stars Dawn Wells of Gilligan’s Island fame, and the late Dana Plato of Diff’rent Strokes. Wells portrays the mother of three children who become lost in the swamp until the creature comes to their rescue.^[1]

A third film, this one involving Pierce, was made with the title The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek (a.k.a. Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues). This movie follows the adventures of a University of Arkansas professor (Pierce) and his students, one of which is Pierce’s son, on their trip to Fouke, Arkansas to find and study the creature. A few scenes in the beginning of the movie were shot at the university, including an Arkansas Razorbacks football game.^[2] The movie was featured in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 .^[3]

Between 2002 and 2008, Hen’s Tooth Video, Education 2000 Inc., Sterling Entertainment, Unicorn Video and Cheezy Flicks Entertainment all released The Legend of Boggy Creek on Region 1 DVD.^[4] Several of these versions are now out of print.

In 2005, Elite Entertainment released the sequel, Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues, on Region 1 DVD. Additionally, in 2004, the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode that lampooned the film was released on DVD by Rhino Entertainment.^[5] Only the Rhino Entertainment version is still in print.

Although The Legend of Boggy Creek was not the first ‘creature feature’ by any means, it was pioneering in that it marked the motion picture debut of Bigfoot. From that point on, Sasquatch was a star. Countless similarly-themed films followed in the wake of Boggy’s successful 1972 release, including Creature From Black Lake, Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot, The Capture of Bigfoot, and later Harry and the Hendersons.^[6]^[7]^[8]^[9]^[10] In recent years, influence on modern moviemakers is still strong. Its docudrama format – which was way ahead of its time in the 1970s – was purposefully echoed in 1999’s The Blair Witch Project.^[11]^[12] In 2008, Duane Graves and Justin Meeks accurately recreated the drive-in feel of the movie in their blatant Boggy homage titled The Wild Man of the Navidad, released by IFC Films.^[13]^[14]^[15]

Loren Coleman About Loren Coleman
Loren Coleman is one of the world’s leading cryptozoologists, some say “the” leading living cryptozoologist. Certainly, he is acknowledged as the current living American researcher and writer who has most popularized cryptozoology in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Starting his fieldwork and investigations in 1960, after traveling and trekking extensively in pursuit of cryptozoological mysteries, Coleman began writing to share his experiences in 1969. An honorary member of Ivan T. Sanderson’s Society for the Investigation of the Unexplained in the 1970s, Coleman has been bestowed with similar honorary memberships of the North Idaho College Cryptozoology Club in 1983, and in subsequent years, that of the British Columbia Scientific Cryptozoology Club, CryptoSafari International, and other international organizations. He was also a Life Member and Benefactor of the International Society of Cryptozoology (now-defunct). Loren Coleman’s daily blog, as a member of the Cryptomundo Team, served as an ongoing avenue of communication for the ever-growing body of cryptozoo news from 2005 through 2013. He returned as an infrequent contributor beginning Halloween week of 2015. Coleman is the founder in 2003, and current director of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine.

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