This is one of the bigger ones on the blog, one that ties in to several continuities.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
DALE DRINNON: More from Cedar and Willow
This is one of the bigger ones on the blog, one that ties in to several continuities.
RICHARD REVIEWS: Boggy Creek (2010)
BOGGY CREEK (2010) DIR: Bryan T Jaynes, Studio 3 Entertainment
Way back in 1972 Charles E. Pierce directed the cult classic The Legend of Boggy Creek, a docu-drama based on sightings of skunk apes in Boggy Creek, Arkansas. Though filmed on a very limited budget, the film was remarkably good. It was moody, creepily realistic and subtle in its menace. The shadowy man-thing of the swamps was never clearly seen. Instead it was a lurking, nocturnal presence, and all the more effective for it.
Way back in 1972 Charles E. Pierce directed the cult classic The Legend of Boggy Creek, a docu-drama based on sightings of skunk apes in Boggy Creek, Arkansas. Though filmed on a very limited budget, the film was remarkably good. It was moody, creepily realistic and subtle in its menace. The shadowy man-thing of the swamps was never clearly seen. Instead it was a lurking, nocturnal presence, and all the more effective for it.
The film spawned two sequels, neither of which were as good as the original. Then news broke of a modern remake. I’d always thought that the original could work as a remake if done with care. Sadly it was not. Jaynes’s film lacks all the soul and heart of Pierce’s. It is merely another slasher movie dressed up in cryptozoological garb.
The action, for no good reason I can see, is moved to Texas from Arkansas and revolved around a young woman, Jennifer Dupree (Melissa Carnell), returning to her remote childhood home. Years before her father had died under strange circumstances that had been written off as a hit and run. She brings an entourage of annoying ‘friends’ to stay for a weekend at the lakeside house. A gun-toting neighbour warns them about creatures in the swamp that kill and mutilate men, and drag off women to breed with. They all laugh off his stories but guess what: there are killer ape-men in the swamp!
The rest is achingly predictable. One by one the men are ripped apart and the girls hauled off for some rough monkey love. The creatures, what little is seen of them, are truly dire. They look like no description of the Boggy Creek creature, instead resembling a cross between an acne-riddled Neanderthal and a moth-eaten version of Chewbacca from Star Wars. In fact the film is more like a remake of James C. Wasson’s 1980 video nasty Night of the Demon (not to be confused with the 1957 classic), wherein mullet-haired students are graphically and pointlessly ripped apart by a laughably unconvincing sasquatch (with voodoo rituals thrown in for good measure). But whereas Night of the Demon has a kitsch entertainment value, Boggy Creek lacks even this.
Apparently this year Dustin Ferguson directed The Legacy of Boggy Creek, another docu-drama based on the Arkansas events and sightings in the four decades since it first appeared. I’ve yet to see this film but I hope it is a worthy successor to The Legend of Boggy Creek because the wretched, imagination-lacking disaster Jaynes has offered up certainly isn’t.
0/10
TERATOLOGY: Lars Thomas sent this...
For the first time ever - two-headed viper found in the wild in Denmark.
LIZ CLANCY writes...
Another late night here at CFZ Greater Manchester and again, I'm having a bit of writer's block. Day one of UnCon will have now ended and I hope our people in the thick of it had a wonderful first day. For my part, I've been at work and at the shops and drawing fluffy white bunnies with small children, so there's a little animal reference to keep this post vaguely on-topic.
This time we have for you today a review by Richard Freeman of a new Boggy Creek film amongst other cryptozoological diamonds.
Tomorrow I promise to try my best to get a more decent blog done for you after sleep....
CRYPTOZOOLOGY: Dale Drinnon talks about Denisovian Genes
Dale Drinnon has updated his blog, talking about Denisovian Genes And Transpacific Contact.
This work came about from a comment on one of my Sundaland postings and turned out to have genetic evidence in support of the old Transpacific contacts in an unusual way.
CFZ NEWS SERVICE: Yesterday's News Today
Yesterday’s News Today
http://cryptozoologynews.blogspot.com/
On this day in 1850 Robert Louis Stevenson was born. He is best known as the writer or the strange case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and treasure island (Arrr).
And now the news:
Guilty pleasure, but I really enjoyed this particular anathema: