Creature from Black Lake

source: Creature from Black Lake

in a sentence, it really is the best of all time. a chilling film that keeps the viewer in suspense as to what the creature is and what it's motives are for terrorising the small town setting. the camera-work is stunning and some of the shots achieved herein have far more scare-effect than most horror films these days. i found this film genuinely more disturbing than saw in that it leaves the antagonist up to your own imagination, rather than filling the scenes with huge amounts of gore. the soundtrack is haunting, beautiful and suspenseful all in the right places and truly complements the film. a strong ending and a chilling storyline both contribute to this being a fantastic movie altogether.

I first saw this film when I 13 years old and really liked it. Two guys cruising down to Louisiana in their van, picking up some local chicks, and chasing after Bigfoot really appealed to my 13 year old sensibilities. Plus it seemed like the two leads were having a good time and didn't take themselves too seriously. Having watched it again recently, I found their interaction to be a bit on the dorky side, but I still think the movie is a lot of fun. The film theorizes that Bigfoot doesn't really care for empty tents as he becomes quite angry when he enters the heroes' tent and they are are not in it. He also shares swimming abilities with the creature from the black lagoon. I remember the scene where he snatches Jack Elam's buddy from the boat really spooked me back in the day.

Creature From Black Lake (1976) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The 70's were full of Bigfoot movies and this one here is probably the best of what I've seen. Two college students from Chicago travel to the swamps of Louisiana where they hope to find Bigfoot. They do find him but wish they didn't because he's in a rather grumpy mood. Outside from very poor comedy bits, this film manages to be quite successful in showing the legendary creature as a fierce and frightening being. The film manages to capture the mood and feel of the swamp very well and all the scenes dealing with the creature are very good. The performances are on the shaky side but what do you expect with this sort of drive-in fair. Jack Elam plays the crazy local and Dub Taylor of Bonnie and Clyde fame has a small role. Cinematography by Dean Cundy.

Two college students go down South looking for bigfoot. The locals try to warn them off. They get into some mild trouble with local girls, one of whom is naturally the sheriff's daughter. But the real fun begins when bigfoot shows up. Many of us who were children in the 70's harbor a certain misbegotten affection for bigfoot movies. Many of these were actually "documentaries" or "docudramas" that are pretty hard to find these days. Another one, "Snowbeast", is a pretty decent TV movie. This may be the best, certainly one of the better at least, of the purely fictional, cinematic movies. It's pretty tame like most of these movies were (with the exception of the wonderfully gory "Night of the Demon" and the short-lived "bigfoot-rape" movies), but it has some pretty good suspense and likable characters (including the guy who played "Ponce de Leon in the 70's cult classic "Pretty Maids All in a Row"). It was a local production made in the South by a director with a great affection for the region, who for once doesn't treat small-town Southerners like a bunch of dumb hicks (OK, maybe they really ARE a bunch of dumb hicks, but its still refreshing). This movie kind of fell into the shadow of the similar but more successful "Legend of Boggy Creek", but I personally liked this one a lot better. Tragically it's not available in widescreen yet, but I'd still recommend it.

Even allowing for its mid-1970's vintage, this movie is absolutely wretched. An idea obviously filched from past flunkies like 'Creature From The Black Lagoon', This effort doesn't even come close to some of the corniest creature features of 20 years earlier. The classic 'Them' can kick it into a dirty puddle. It stars Jack Elam. He's the stalwart who's been providing B-list comedy/baddie characters for westerns since as long as I can remember. And given a movie worth watching, and a director who knows how to direct it, he can give a very good turn. But he's certainly no lead. The movie begins with a deliverance-style take on the gloomy, isolated Louisiana swamplands, reminiscent of 'Southern Comfort', but without a fraction of the emotional or psychological impact. Two men are punting about and finding their traps tampered with. Before long one of them is leaning over the side of the vessel and reaching into the water as such a patently obviously prelude to being dragged overboard that you wonder if the monster has forgotten to come on set. We glimpse one of those big, hairy, rubber hands that can be bought as a Halloween gag for £10. From there on, it's downstream all the way. Its vintage is simply no excuse. Just the following year, George Lucas brought us 'Star Wars' with a similar, but much more plausible Wookie. And there were any number of lesser - but far more worthy movies - doing the rounds both then and before. In every technical aspect, from filming to editing to script, this is a complete bummer. I've given it 2 stars because it's nearly Christmas & I'me feeling festive; but really, it doesn't deserve any. Check out 'Southern Comfort' to find out how it should have been done. Run 'em back-to-back if you have the patience. I sure haven't. It came from the charity shop, but I threw it away instead of taking it back because nobody should pay for garbage, not even in the name of cancer research.

I know, I know. This is an extremely dated, average, run of the mill, low budget, cheesy seventies B class horror movie. However, I saw this film in the theater when I was ten years old and it scared the hell out of me. The creature depicted in the movie kept my brother and I out of the woods for an entire summer. We were convinced that the existence of Sasquatch type creatures was entirely possible and that sudden violent death awaited anyone unfortunate enough to have a close encounter with one of these bad tempered beasts. For nostalgic reasons alone this is still one of my favorite B class horror movies, but don't go out of your way to find it.

Even though I may not have enjoyed the movie so far as Braveheart enjoyment goes, I loved this movie. The reason? My grandfather was the executive producer, and two of the actors are my uncle and my cousin, so watching this movie growing up with the rest of my cousins and family was more fun than scary and more laughing at our relatives bad acting. This movie is great if you're going to watch this with friends and family, it will create a lot of laughs in this day and age because we have big time scary movies now, but Creatue of Black Lake isn't one of them. It's just a Louisiana good time.

The first, and as far as I know, the only Bigfoot buddy movie. Rives (John David Carson) and Pahoo (Dennis Fimple) are college students who drive their van into Louisiana hoping to find Bigfoot, and maybe some Cajun women as well. By golly, they find both, and it's a memorable trip. Low budget horror films from the mid-70's are often many wonderful things--raw, scary, disturbing, inventive. Very seldom, however, are they warm and endearing, with characters so real that you forget you're watching a movie. But that's what you get here. This is a film of rare qualities. The "creature" Rives and Pahoo are after is shown only fleetingly, and that's probably best. The idea that the thing is lurking in the darkness, just outside their camp, is nicely conveyed by sound effects and the actors' performances. There's a good number of scary, spooky moments. When the scares arrive, they're doubly effective because the film has taken its time building up the characters. Dialogue will often kill a horror film, but when the talking scenes happen, I find myself listening with rapt attention. The story of a family tragedy indirectly caused by a Bigfoot sighting is upsetting, and realistically presented. And then there is the famous "Chicken!" speech, which explains why Pahoo has a deep-seated obsession with hamburgers. In addition to talking, there is also some kissin' going on when our two buddies meet a pair of girls at a local diner. Does this film feature less "horror action" than an average horror film? Arguably, this is the case. Is this a boring picture? Not at all. Dennis Fimple ("Pahoo") was recently in "House of 1,000 Corpses," his final film role. He's just great here as one of the friendly Bigfoot hunters. All in all, a surprising film that focuses on the people who are searching for the Bigfoot, and not on the Bigfoot itself. How does it end? Well, it's been released on VHS and DVD and isn't too hard to find. A recommended buy or rental.

This movie was to be the last respectful BIGFOOT movie to come out for along time. Hollywood had already begun turning the topic into a pop culture joke starting with the SIX MILLION DOLLER MAN/BIGFOOT travesty. This would eventually lead to the E.T.-ing of our favorite bipedal primate with films like HARRY AND THE HENDERSONS. Hairy hominids just didn't seem very scary following this film. This movie stars one ticked off sasquatch. Even more so than his cousin in the previous film, LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK. The story is about two anthropology students on a trip to investigate a supposed swamp creature in OIL CITY LA. The chills and suspense are plenty, there is a lot of comic relief, especially from veteran actors Jack Elam and Dub Taylor and the acting is miles above The acting in BOGGY CREEK. There is however one major flaw in the script. So much so that I even noticed it when I first saw the movie at age fourteen. You see, in real life most bigfoot investigators spend their entire lives searching for the beast and end up at best finding a few hairs or maybe a foot print or two. I know this is only a Fictional movie but our two main characters seem to be running into this creature constantly from the moment they hit town. This seems even more glaring when you add the fact that most of locals, who presumably have lived there all their lives, have never seen the monster. These two (lucky?) guys have three encounters with the creature, on three consecutive nights, in three different locations, presumably miles apart. You begin to wonder who's searching for who. The movie's continuity would seem smoother if one or two of these three particular encounters were with different characters, and the two main characters show up later to investigate. These issues shouldn't take away from the overall entertainment value of the film, they just seemed obvious to me. If your into all things crypto-, see this movie. Its the last really scary bigfoot flick.