Bog

I remember watching this as a kid and it was bad, but saw it again recently and it was worse! It is a film featuring a monster within a lake that is barely seen, lots of talking within labs and a really old cast of unattractive leads that we have to watch two of them make out for what seems like more time than the creature is present on screen! Not a good film in the least, but it is entertaining in its presentation and I am surprised this one never got riffed on MST3K cause it features film whose length fits their time frame, was rated PG so not a lot of worry about cutting stuff out and it is a very bad movie!

The story has a guy dynamite fishing, who accidentally releases a strange creature in a lake. The movie is called bog, but a bog is generally like a swamp, but with less water. Well, this guy is killed and two couples come to this place to drink beer and fish. Well the guys did, the wives came along to complain. The monster gets them and we have a couple of older people trying to figure out what is killing people, a sheriff who keeps losing deputies and a monster that doesn't look that bad getting virtually no screen time.

The monster kills people, but you really see nothing of the attack. One of those films featuring implied monster attacks. The cast, as I have said, is old. When the two girls on bikes ride through it was a breath of fresh air that was not there long enough as they get attacked. There is a swamp hag who kind of mumbles her lines to the point you cannot understand her and a guy who resembles Torgo who promptly gets killed when he leaves her shelter even though he should have known they'd be safer waiting inside her place.

A lot of films were made during the 70's of the lower budget horror variety and some of them work. Shock Waves, Dawn of the Dead and countless others that were still really good. This one was one of the many that were just plain laughable in their execution. Why would any filmmaker think that anyone would want to see a couple of people old enough to be grandparents making out? Though, honestly, that is the most horrific scene within the movie...

There must be many different ways to look at BOG. I, however, can't find any of them. One has to wonder why the creators of this cinematic gem never chose to insert a "The" before the title, why an actress obviously plays two parts, or why the titular "bog" in question is actually a lake. Possibly the only defining moments in this film can be seen during the preview. Pay special attention to the cop who, completely off-cue, screams out "Look, look! Hey, look over there! Look!" Now there's some classic dialogue.

I'm a devotee of bad films ("Manos, the Hands of Fate" is one of my favorites; no, seriously, I really like it!), but "Bog" was just a bit too dumb, even for me. Oh, I don't deny that it had it's moments. But in between those moments was a lot of dead space. I was surprised by the "love scene" between the film's two leads. I think this is, without question, the oldest love scene I've ever witnessed! Now, it's not graphic by any stretch of the imagination, but how often do you see a 50-year-old woman making out with a 60-year-old man? Heck, how often do you see a 50-year-old woman who is supposed to be our eye-candy? I've got to give the movie props for striking a blow for the geriatric community!

I first discovered this movie back in college in 1985. A bunch of friends and I were into bad movies. Well, BOG buries all the others. Yes, I know that Plan 9 from Outer Space is generally considered to be the worst, but believe me folks, BOG is worse. Here is why. Ed Wood didn't know any better. He really thought he was making good movies. He was using absolutely no- name actors (with the possible exception of Bela Lugosi) and was simply oblivious to how awful his films were.

The folks that made BOG should have known better! My God, this movie is awful. There is no indication that the film makers are trying to make a comedy here, and nearly every frame of the film begs the question of why someone along the way didn't say "Wait a minute folks...we really don't want to continue with this."

The acting is abysmal, the editing is ridiculous. An earlier reviewer mention the "shoddy use of freeze frame." No, this is just bad editing where the editor freezes the scene in preparation for the next edit. The problem here is that the splicing of the scenes was so poorly done that there is a longer than necessary pause before the next edit. Bad, just bad.

BOG also includes the absolute worst double-take in the history of film. When the Dr. (Marshall Thompson) is informed about the creature, he does an absurdly exaggerated head- rotating, eye-blinking double-take, that doesn't even rise to the believability of a Looney Tunes short.

Now having said all that, I can't encourage viewers enough to check out BOG. It has brought me hours of enjoyment and laughs, and of you are a bad film buff like me, BOG is a definite MUST-SEE!

Some of the filming was also done in Lake Tomahawk Wisconsin.. specifically the old airport control tower which was used in exterior shots as the police station. There is also an aerial shot of downtown Minoqua (nearby Lake Tomahawk) in the opening sequence.This is currently enjoying something of a grassroots revival in Lake Tomahawk (July 2008) Legend has it that the cast and crew spent a significant amount of time imbibing at the local bars...Which might explain some of the acting. and Yes I can confirm that this is truly one of the worst movies ever made but totally brilliant because of it. With regards to the editing. It is so bad that I had originally thought it was the vintage vcr that it was playing on that was causing the tape to freeze but soon realized that it must be an "artsy" editing job.Reading the other comment about the editing I now realize that it is even worse than I had imagined which only adds to the aura of shoddiness and thus to it's unintentional brilliance