70's American Horror Part Two

THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK
(1972)
Dir - Charles B. Pierce
Overall: WOOF

As the debut from Charles B. Pierce, The Legend of Boggy Creek was one of the first faux-documentary/Big Foot themed horror films of any kind and it reeks of everything that zero experience movie making has to offer.  Atrocious pacing, atrocious performances from an entire cast of non-actors, atrocious music, (including songs written and sung by Pierce himself), and atrocious tone issues.  Minutes that seem like centuries paddle on with soft, harmonica-fueled folk music or Disney-esque public domain scores with our non-threatening narrator talking over shot after shot of creeks, streams, woods, forest critters and the like.  Then there are horrid reenactments which contain acting that makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like The Godfather and it just goes on and on and on and on and fucking on from there.  At one point we listen to an entire song about Travis Crabtree as he strolls around doin' campin' stuffs in the woods, followed by another eternity where we meet some other hillbilly who has lived in those woods alone for twenty odd years and tells his life story only for us to learn that in fact no, he has never seen the Fouke Monster that the whole film is about.  Talk about exciting stuff.

BURNT OFFERINGS
(1976)
Dir - Dan Curtis
Overall: GOOD

The best theatrically released film from 70s television horror mainstay Dan Curtis, Burn Offerings is one of many from the decade to take a spooky and quirky take at the ole haunted house story.  A cast of familiars including Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, (all a hundred and seventy-four years of her), and a cameo by Burgess Meredith do splendid work as they are cooped up in a rented mansion for the summer that seems to have its own otherworldly and unwholesome agenda.  Reed in particular is excellent, his usual red-faced overreaching being suitable for such a character that is gradually losing his grip on reality due to supernatural forces.  This is the kind of slow moving, soft-lighted OFFERING, (nyuck, nyuck), from the decade that spends most its time letting the cast go slightly and then majorly mad, only busting out the creepy sporadically and subtly at first.  The chauffeur that continually torments Reed (played by usual western, "Hey, its that ugly, creepy looking guy" character actor Anthony James), is especially menacing when he shows up.  The ending may be as predictable as Bette Davis was old, but it still manages to deliver with a memorable and gruesome set piece.

THE INCREDIBLE MELTING MAN
(1977)
Dir - William Sachs
Overall: MEH
 
An unofficial and relentlessly boring remake of the 1959 film First Man into Space, The Incredible Melting Man is notable for both its poor reputation and for featuring some of the earliest makeup work from Rick Baker.  According to writer/director William Sachs, it was initially intended to be a parody of 1950's B-movies, but producers eliminated much of the intended humor and re-shot scenes without his involvement.  These re-shoots also aligned it with the aforementioned First Man into Space as Sachs original version had no returned astronaut element.  It makes matters worst that much of Baker's wet goo work was omitted from the screen, allegedly due to actor Alex Rebar being uncooperative with the lengthy prosthetic application process.  An inconsistent watch then both in tone and due to the fact that we are only given maybe five minutes of screen time for the title monster and over a hundred and twenty minutes for disinterested actors left to talk to each other.  Wherever one wants to point the finger, the pacing is unforgivably slack and renders much of what is here unwatchable, but gore hounds may find a highlight reel sufficient at least.