Boggy Creek: The Series is a campy take on the Bigfoot legend set in a backwater Arkansas town. Released in 2019, Season 1 of Boggy Creek features six 20-minute episodes. The show is available free on ad-supported streaming service Tubi.
The overall plot features Bigfoot as “a silent guardian, a watchful protector” of the town’s offbeat residents. Yes, I’m quoting Jim Gordon from The Dark Knight, but Boggy Creek is the polar opposite of the Christopher Nolan film in every conceivable way – budget, tone, you name it. Incidentally, Eric Roberts who played Salvatore Maroni in The Dark Knight is the narrator of Boggy Creek.
First and foremost, all you need to know about Boggy Creek when deciding to watch it or not is that Fred Olen Ray created the series. Since 1978, Ray has directed more than 160 low-budget horror, sci-fi, and softcore movies, including Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, Bad Girls from Mars, Bikini Drive-In, and more recently Piranha Women. Many of his films are intentionally packed with gratuitous nudity, inane humor, and outrageous plots.
Add series director Henrique Couto to the mix and you double down on the camp.
While Boggy Creek never takes itself seriously, the show maintains an oddly sincere respect for the local Sasquatch legend, which is loosely based on the Fouke Monster famously depicted in the 1972 film The Legend of Boggy Creek.
The idea for the Boggy Creek series is actually a damn good one. Multiple reports of Bigfoot sightings in the region have prompted the American Yeti Project to send a research team to investigate. What follows are two hours of episodes where researchers Sarah and Roger deal with Bigfoot reports. Sarah and Roger are played by the affable Joni Durian and Mike Hilinski.
The first episode, “The Witch of Boggy Creek,” is about a reclusive woman who sets out food for Bigfoot and owns a stash of old gold coins. When a thief tries to steal her gold, Bigfoot comes to the rescue. By the way, the recluse is played by Brinke Stevens. A Fred Olen Ray favorite, Stevens is one of the original camp horror queens and played Linda in the classic 1982 slasher Slumber Party Massacre.
In the most Fred Olen Ray-like episode, “Beauty and the Bigfoot,” the Beast of Boggy Creek saves a group of college coeds from a psycho killer. In another episode, Bigfoot rescues Sarah from a pair of armed robbers. The finale finds Bigfoot battling a vengeful supernatural scarecrow.
How’s the Bigfoot suit? The large-headed version of Sasquatch grew on me after a couple of episodes.
While some of the acting, dialogue. and humor may cause extreme eye-rolling, Boggy Creek is not trying to win an Emmy. But it’s not pure schlock either. It exudes a certain nostalgic charm for me, in the same way, André the Giant playing Bigfoot in The Six Million Dollar Man does.
Yes, Boggy Creek is a thick slice of Bigfoot cheesiness, but the concept is as solid as chhurpi. Can you imagine a suspenseful series about a research team that investigates the reemergence of the Fouke Monster in the Arkansas swamplands? Maybe with an X-Files vibe? And the perfect title for that show? The Bigfoot Files, of course.
NEXT UP: Chapter Fifty-Two: Hunting Bigfoot. I review the 2021 documentary directed by Taylor Guterson.
THE BIGFOOT FILES
HorrorAddicts.net 
Boggy Creek sounds like cheesy, campy fun!
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