"What kind of thing could pick up two hunnerd' pound hogs and walk off with 'em?"
Movie Review:
What kind of thing could pick up two hunnerd' pound hogs and walk off with 'em?" The Legend of Boggy Creek, a pseudo-documentary about the true-life sightings of an ape-like creature in Fouke, Arkansas during the '70s, is full of these little back-porch country contemplations.......full review
The Plot:A documentary-style drama which questions the existence of a monster in an Arkansas swamp. It is really more of a glimpse at lower-class swamp culture from the seventies, though, than it is a monster flick.
Sequels:
Although it sparked a rash of "Bigfoot" sightings across the country soon after its release, and two direct sequels were released in the years following, including Return to Boggy Creek, and The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II, none approached the effectiveness and allure of the original.
Return to Boggy Creek (1977) (USA); The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek, Part II (1985) (USA)
DVD Release Details:
DVD Release Date:
July 2, 2002
Aspect Ratio:
Pre-1954 standard - 1.33:1 Anamorphic Widescreen
Region information:
Region 1: USA
Closed Captioning:
None
Master Format:
Film
Sides:
1
Chapter Stops:
12
Sound:
Dolby Digital: 2.0 stereo.
Subtitles:
None
DVD Extra Features:
Color; Interactive menus; scene access; Director's Filmography; Production Notes; Photo Gallery.
DVD Chapter List:
1. Start; 2. This Is Fouke; 3. Boggy Creek; 4. Home Alone; 5. A Big Hunt; 6. Travis Crabtree; 7. The Creature's Back; 8. Nancy's Sleepover; 9. You Hear That?; 10. Night Visitor; 11. Get a Gun; 12. End Credits
The Menu: • Play the Movie • Scene access • Director's Filmography • Production Notes • Photo Gallery
The DVD Set:
You will quite often find The Legend of Boggy Creek offered in a collector's set coupled with The Creature From Black Lake. There appears to be two separate and distinct DVD releases of The Legend of Boggy Creek. One is distributed by Hens Tooth Video, the other by UAV Corp. From what I can tell, the only difference is the cover artwork. Samples from each are below, the one on the left being from Hen's Tooth Video.
Movie stills From The Legend of Boggy Creek:
Below are miscellaneous photos related to the movie, the area and the legend. On Boggy Creek
A cast impression of the "Fouke Monster's" foot
Boggy Creek bottomlands in Arkansas
Smokey Crabtree's book store in Fouke, Arkansas
The Monster Mart logo
Miscellaneous Fouke'O'bilia
The Monster Mart in Fouke, Arkansas
Ol' Smokey Crabtree himself
Smokey Crabtree in his boat.
The Legend of Boggy Creek Movie Poster:
Boggy Creek Trivial Tidbits:
Today, the only thing that remains of the legend is the Monster Mart located on Highway 71 in Fouke, Arkansas. The proprietors will gladly sell you a souvenir T-shirt and tell you stories about the creature. You can't miss the mart: its sign has a hairy creature riding atop a red razorback boar, the symbol of nearly every sports team in Arkansas. For your convenience, there's a hose near the out-house.
There is an annual Texas Bigfoot Conference hosted by the Texas Bigfoot Research Center
Fouke, Arkansas is located in the southwest corner of Arkansas, approximately 15 miles south of Texarkana, USA, on Highway 71. It is a small town, approximate population 864, and it's biggest claim to fame is the story of the Fouke Monster, the making of the movie "The Legend of Boggy Creek", and the home of J. E. "Smokey" Crabtree . In the late 60's and early 70"s the country around Fouke was more heavily wooded than it is today and there was a lot of activity from the creature. Today the land has been clear cut in a lot of areas, cutting down on secluded places in which the creature can roam. But there are still sightings of the creature from time to time and even if a person never gets to see the creature there is still a lot of beautiful, wild country to enjoy
If you do decide to go to Fouke, there is a gift shop near the Creek where you can buy T-shirts and monster memorabilia so even if you don't see the monster it's not a total waste of time. It's fun Arkansas history!
The other most famous creature of Arkansas is the White River Monster, a mystery so widely accepted that it has it's own game preserve! From about 1915 to the 1970's, residents of the small town of Newport, Arkansas reported seeing a monster in the nearby river. The sightings were not constant but seemed to occur many at a time. In 1973 a resolution was passed in the Arkansas State Legislature creating the White River Monster Refuge along all of the White River that runs adjacent to the Jacksonport State Park. This resolution made it illegal to "molest, kill, trample, or harm the White River Monster while he is in the retreat.
For a time, the only evidence of the creature was a plaster cast of a 131/2-inch footprint taken from a local soybean field. The cast was destroyed in a service station fire in the late 1970s, Roberts said. "That was the only real proof you'd have around here" that the monster exists, he said. Though scores of residents have reported seeing the hairy creature, experts scoff at its existence. Frank Schamback, an archaeologist at Southern Arkansas University at Magnolia who debunked the footprint as a hoax in the 1970s, said he doesn't believe in the Fouke monster.
Smokey Crabtree, a resident of Fouke was hired by the film crew to serve as a scout and assist in finding locations for filming. He and several of his family members appeared in the film, playing themselves... and re-enacting sightings of the monster. Since the filming however Smokey Crabtree has become a local legend, and has written a book entitled, "Smokey and the Fouke Monster", which chronicles his involvement in the film.
In 1971, a Fouke resident, Bobby Ford, was treated at a hospital for shock and scratches, which he claimed were caused by some sort of huge ape-like creature. Soon thereafter, other people also claimed to have seen the creature or that their livestock were mauled and consumed by it. But the sightings quickly stopped after the sheriff arrested and fined three men for staging and reporting a fraudulent monster attack.
Six months after the Ford incident, Charles Pierce announced that he was going to make a movie based on the Fouke Monster. He told the local newspaper that the film would be made on a budget of $160,000 (somebody misplaced a decimal point) and that he wouldn't be surprised if it got some Oscar nominations!
The Legend of Boggy Creek Movie Quotes:
Words to the Travis Crabtree theme song:
Hey Travis Crabtree/Wait a minute for me/Let's go back in the bottoms/back where the fish are bitin'/Where all the world's invitin'/And nobody sees the flowers bloom but me." Or how about the main theme that goes "Here the Sulphur river flows/Rising when the storm cloud blows/This is where the creature goes/Lurking in the land he knows/Perhaps he dimly wonders why/Is there no other such as I/To love, to touch before I die/To listen to my lonely cry.
"What kind of thing could pick up two hunnerd' pound hogs and walk off with 'em?"
"He tore the hide clean off 'em."
"eyes as big as silver dollars that burned coal red"
"I've heard it twice. It's a different sound. I don't know what you would call it," he said. "It'd be a sound like a cross between a cow bellow and a panther screaming."
Contribute - We at Frank's Reel Reviews love The Legend of Boggy Creek and if you have a web site, or know of one, that contains interesting information, facts or details related to The Legend of Boggy Creek and wish to have it included on this page, simply send us an e-mail at admin@franksreelreviews.com We'd be happy to include it.
