Yeti - La leggenda continua

Charles B. Pierce is a small time filmmaker who made a couple of films of note. One was The Town That Dreaded Sundown and the other was The Legend of Boggy Creek. He also made a sequel to Boggy Creek and then this one. So yes, he made three Boggy Creek films, but the third one is called the second one. This one would have the fortune or misfortune, of being featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 and for good reason, it is kind of bad. Granted, it was more enjoyable than the second of the Boggy Creek films, which had a whole lot of nothing going on and the climax of the film was essentially the creature helping two kids out of the swamp. You never really got a good look at the creature in that one at all! Here, you see it from a distance right from the get go and you see it numerous times throughout. At least this time they were not afraid to show us the creature, who sadly is not quite as scary as Old Man Crenshaw!

The story has a professor at the University of Arkansas going into the swamps and muddy bottoms to try and track down the infamous Boggy Creek creature. He brings two of his students and a friend of the female student into the swamp to track down the creature. During the first portion of the film we are under constant assail from flashbacks! At one point, you get two nearly back to back. Then the girls go on a pointless misadventure, before the film reaches its climax at Old Man Crenshaw's place! They could have seriously made a film just featuring him as a berserk super hillbilly from hell that skins his victims alive and trying to mate with the females! Instead, we just get the Boggy Creek creature busting in and then leaving.

This film made a very funny episode of MST3K. It was really ripe for riffing and is funny throughout most of the episode. The only slow stretch was the two girls and their misadventure in the jeep as it just seems to go on forever. However, once they go to Crenshaw's place it picks up again. They make fun of the flashbacks in a funny bump segment and you can feel their pain as they watch the horrific tale of the man who was apparently a lawyer who cleans himself up with the Sears catalog.

So this film is pretty bad, but it does have a lot going on in it, unlike the second film that is not part two, even though it is! This one could have been better had they gone for an R rating as I would have loved to seen the frizzy haired girl go topless! However, I am guessing Charles B. Pierce would not have asked the girls to do that as I am betting he knew them quite well. His son is in the film too and there is a female Pierce in the film two. I think she is in the water at the beach as I know she was not one of the main girls. Pierce did show some flair in his earlier attempts at making films, but there is only so much one can do with what I am guessing is a very low budget. On the plus side, it did make for a very entertaining episode of MST3K!

"I'm driving my car, lookin' for a Waffle House, drinkin' my Wild Turkey!" Watching this movie on MST3K is the ONLY way to view this totally horrible flick. The acting is so bad, it's beyond belief. How Charles Pierce ever thought this would work, I have no idea. This movie makes me want to break something. WATCH ONLY ON MST3K.

"Good night Tim, where ever you are..."

My review was written in December 1985 after a Times Square screening.

Charles B. Pierce's "Boggy Creek II", made in 1983, finally arrived in New York with the misleading retitle "The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek Part II". Pic is actually a very mild and folksy piece of regional filmmaking in which it is clear that the filmmaker (who doubles as his own leading man) really likes the creatures. Though labeled number 2, pic is actually the third trip to Boggy Creek, since Pierce's 1972 hit "The Legend of Bobby Creek" was followed in 1977 by a film aimed at the kiddies (and made not by Pierce but by Tom Moore) called "Return to Boggy Creek".

Pierce stars as Bryan Lockhart, a University of Arkansas professor of anthropology who is pulled away from a football game (where the Razorbacks are beating Tulsa) to investigate reports that the Boggy Creek creature is on the loose again. He quickly rounds up an expedition peopled by student Tim (Chuck Pierce, the director's son) and two pretty girls (Cindy Butler, Serene Hedin).

Quartet travels south to Texarkana to interview folks who've sighted the beast. Camping out, they set up a computerized system of sensors to track the nearly 400-pound creature's movements. Pierce includes fuzzy-focus flashbacks illustrating previous tales of this creature's contacts with humanity. Pic doesn't really pick up steam until the final reel when Jimmy Clem appears in a fine acting turn as a hermit who has captured the creature's offspring which he is holding as bait to attract the parent. Prof. Lockhart lets both creatures go, intoning the film's message that they're part of nature living in harmony and ought to be left alone to roam free.

The creature looks like a man in a gorilla suit and film is painfully short on thrills. This type of filmmaking went out with the wilderness adventures, whose heyday was a decade ago.

There's a thin line between movies and documentaries. Boggy Creek straddles that line and steps deep in outhouse fecal matter. Where do we start? Yes, incessant flashbacks which don't really add much to getting us anywhere in the story. Besides, these witnesses forget to add in: "Maybe it was the gallon of moonshine I was chugging...". Boggy looks like an outcast from Ape City . Oh, but I wish there was more Boggy cause we get unending scenes of Professor Know-it-All, his son, oops, I mean Tim the Topless assistant, and two gals who whine about lost cosmetics. Boggy Creek 2 gives you that first hand experience of stepping into the edge of a mucky swamp, feeling your leg sliding into mud while trying to pull yourself out to no avail and rodents, lemurs, and vicious canids chew on your flesh for an afternoon snack.

An extra star goes to Ol' Man Crenshaw. You know, 3 miles down, first cabin on the right? Crenshaw makes a quick cameo, but man, it's so needed. In overalls and everything, Crenshaw is the epitome of Boggy Creek as his pyromaniacal tendencies kick in anyone's "fight or flight" instincts. Either that or his emanating stench. So, watch this for laughs a la MST style and remember: it's coma-inducing!

Sponsored by the Arkansas Caps Inc.

I'm so glad that I saw this on MST3K; I don't know how anyone could have liked this film otherwise. The pointless trip into the woods, the bizarre flashback scenes, and Crenshaw make this film an absolute delight to destroy. The scene where they first encounter the creature in the woods is enough to put you over the edge. And Crenshaw is a classic character in the whole Boggy Creek extravaganza. The pathetic road scene where they encounter a headless deer. And if a shirtless Tim doesn't make you want to do push-ups, nothing will. I could go on and on about this movie. Just remember, if you are ever tracking a creature in the swamp, be sure to bring along two women and tell a story about an outhouse and a Sears catalog.