A Revisit Of Creature Of Black Lake

It's a movie I reviewed in August of '17 and getting to view a proper print of it a few days ago, my appreciation has grown: 

Back in the summer of '17 I saw this movie via a stream on Amazon. It was a fullscreen VHS rip and at the time I stated that I heard the rumor Synapse was going to put it out on Blu. Turns out, that release did eventually happen... a few weeks ago. How I saw this new remastered print: via a mutual reviewing this movie yesterday, it was alerted to me that an account on a certain streaming platform had this available for free. Considering some of the other films that channel has, I wouldn't be surprised if it was zapped one day. Whether or not it's “ethical” to do so, as this is the main movie to watch from director Joy N. Houck, Jr. if you choose to do so in one of the challenges for the Hooptober extravaganza currently taking place... that is worth alerting people about, nevermind finally getting to see this in nice quality. Indeed the print's appearance is an endorsement for the Synapse release-although it is cheeky for an account to already post it on that platform.

Perhaps it's the better view or perhaps it's my tastes changing a bit but I do appreciate this more now than before. The creature in fact is the type of Bigfoot critter as mentioned in The Legend of Boggy Creek, an obvious inspiration for this. The plot is that two of the oldest college students you'll ever see are doing a graduate research project on that topic so they take a SWEET 70's For van & drive to the real life area of Oil City, Louisiana (in the northwest corner of the state) to investigate. It's largely what you'd expect although that is OK if you enjoy such things. Old stories are told of locals encountering the creature in the past, including Jack Elam as a coot sort of trapper who literally drinks booze out of a giant jug and Dub Taylor as a rural grandfather. The sheriff wishes those interlopers leave as they're stirring people up, they encounter local girls, etc.

For the long stretches where the creature is not present-thank goodness you can actually see it sporadically with the remastered print rather than everything being a dark blur on the VHS rip-there is the comedy of the two leads being dumb Yankee fools who act like asses around the locals. Not being condescending to the Louisiana folks was refreshing. The local flavor did seep through whether it be the setting or the music. The film also looks nice because the director of photography was... Dean Cundey! No kidding-that was an early credit for him. Overall, it was entertaining regional filmmaking.