Creature From Black Lake: A Boggy Creek Ripoff with a terrible creature costume that we see too much of. A ‘Cryptid History’ movie review

 

Creature features are fun. The most well known Bigfoot movie of the 1970s is naturally”The Beast of Boggy Creek” from 1972, but that movie spawned not only a sort of Bigfoot mania across the country, but also copycat movies. ‘Creature from Black Lake was released  in 1976, just a few years after Boggy Creek is of those copycats. The plot is somewhat formulaic, a small town in Louisiana deals with rumors of a creature that has killed trappers in the bayous,all the while two college students from Chicago travel to the south to study the creature. The townspeople resist, the creature lurks, shenanigans  ensue. They show us the monster, a lot. As Spielberg teaches us a year later, less is sometimes more. 

The opening of the film is almost like cryptozoology bingo, with a professor giving a lecture about bipedal human creatures, giving shoutouts to the names bigfoot, Sasquatch, Skunkape, etc. he even invokes the coelacanth in his lecture.  The students (Rives and Pahoo) even use the term woodbooger at one point. 

I don’t want to get into spoilers, but I will say it is interesting how the movie treats the topics of trauma after sightings. Local people who admit to our heroes to seeing the creature are clearly disturbed by it, and are loath to admit it or even entertain the idea, a theme that is common in the modern day with people who claim to have seen a bigfoot type creature. It is eventually revealed during some stressful ( for our characters) scenes in the forest  that Pahoo is a Vietnam Veteran and he is unnerved by what is happening,he clearly struggles with the situation and has been in bad situations like the one he and  Rives find themselves in, and he knows it dangerous, unlike his friend who seems younger and less worldly. I mention it because it is an interesting bit of characterization that is not necessary for movie like this, but they included it anyway.  Also, this is obviously an artifact of 1976, at the time a large percentage of men of a certain age would have had these experiences and been dealing with them, it is always interesting to see how movies, even ones like these, are sort of time capsules for when they were made. Another element used to great effect is the local sheriff abusing his authority to intimidate the young men and ‘outsiders’ into staying away from the town and not rile people up with stories of Bigfoot. This element reminds me of the civil rights movement when volunteers (often college students from northern states, just like our heroes) would show up in southern communities to work to help African Americans register to vote and they would often face harassment from people in the community from citizens and even police officers. They  were often  told the same thing, don’t be a rabble rouser, don’t upset the community, etc. The  difference of course is for these Civil Rights era volunteers the consequences were often deadly, with the intimidation they faced ending in murders and lynchings. These stories made the news in the 1960s throughout the country, so like the experience of the Vietnam Veteran, it’s not surprising that this trope ends up in a 1976 movie. Who knew that a b rated monster movie could teach us about the experiences of outsiders and academics in the south in the 1960s and 70s?

‘Creature from Black’ lake is not terrifying, but there are a few moments that make you hold your breath. It is pretty clearly influenced by Beast of Boggy Creek. Clocking in at a compact 90ish minutes and available to view on Amazon Prime you could do worse for an afternoon. For a non cryptozoology enthusiast I don’t think it has much to offer other than its campy monster movie goodness and time capsule into the 70s. For the initiated it offers a view into the state of Bigfoot thought in the 1970s. It’s clear that the writers and other people involved in making the movie were aware of what people in the 60s and 70s were claiming to have seen complete with strange roadside sightings, strange noises outside the house at night, attacks on farm dogs, and ‘attacks on parked cars. All things that were common to sightings reported from the 60s and 70s (and even more common later, curious.)  Definitely an interesting flick. As much as I liked parts of it I would definitely be the first to sign up to see the MST3K or riff trax treatment! That’s for sure. 

Definitive Ratings that mean nothing 

Quality- 2.5/5 Yetis- it’s a rip,off of Boggy Creek, complete with a song! It does look better thanBoggy Creek though. 

Story-2/5 Yetis

Camp factor -3.5/5 Yetis

Special effects- 1/5 Yetis (the suit is just…. Awful)

Cryptid goodness- 5/5 Yetis

Historic value- 4.5/5 Yetis -Between the look at the state of Bigfoot studies and enthusiasm in the mid 1970s this movie gives us, as well as the shoutouts to post Vietnam trauma and memories of the civil rights movement, it’s interesting at least.