50th Anniversary Double Feature Mysteries and Monsters '75 Boggy Creek '72 Films

The Stocktons have the night off so join me in this drive-in double feature and celebrate 50 years of mysteries! The 1970s cryptozoology films were heavily influenced by the cultural fascination with Bigfoot, sparked by the 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage, and broader interest in unexplained phenomena like UFOs and the Bermuda Triangle.

The 50th anniversary of The Mysterious Monsters (also known as Bigfoot: The Mysterious Monster), a 1975 documentary film, was marked in 2025. Directed by Robert Guenette and narrated by Peter Graves, the film explores cryptozoological creatures like Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Yeti, featuring dramatic reenactments, eyewitness accounts, and the famous 1967 Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot footage. It was a theatrical release by Sunn Classic Pictures, building on Guenette’s 1974 TV documentary Monsters! Mysteries or Myths? narrated by Rod Serling. The film, a cult classic, tapped into the 1970s fascination with the paranormal, becoming a hallmark of the era’s drive-in and pseudo-documentary craze. It included notable elements like lie detector tests, hypnosis of witnesses, and interviews with figures like anthropologist Grover Krantz, who supported the authenticity of the Bigfoot footage, and Bigfoot hunter Peter C. Byrne.

The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), directed by Charles B. Pierce, is a low-budget, documentary-style horror film about the Fouke Monster, a Bigfoot-like creature reportedly sighted in Fouke, Arkansas. Blending reenactments, interviews with locals, and eerie narration, it explores alleged encounters with the creature in the swampy Bottoms region. Shot with a gritty, pseudo-realistic style, the G-rated film became a cult classic, popularizing the "found footage" genre and captivating 1970s drive-in audiences with its chilling atmosphere and local folklore.