#42 Boggy Creek 2: The Legend Continues aka The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek part II (Wes)

Boggy Creek 2: The Legend Continues aka The Barbaric Beast of Boggy Creek part II

You know who is one of the most famous of all the worlds monsters, but is hardly ever in any movies? Bigfoot. Sure he had a starring role in Harry and the Hendersons (also in its spin off tv series, which I personally see as little more than an ALF rip-off), but apart from that every movie he features in seems to be as low budget as a blurry film of a giant ape like creature taken in the American wilds. It makes me wonder if there’s a reason why Bigfoot is one of Hollywood’s most elusive creatures, or do people just really not want to see him?

Cryptozoology professor Dr Brant Lockhart (Charles B. Pierce), who with a name like that could have become a 80s soap opera oil tycoon, takes a pair of students, Tim (Chuck Pierce jr) and Tanya (Serene Hedin) and one of the students friends, Leslie (Cindy Butler) on a trip into the Arkansas swamps to look for a Bigfoot-like creature that has been seen by several local residents. After meeting with some unwelcoming locals, the quartet go to camp in Boggy Creek. Here they seek out a hillbilly called Old Man Crenshaw (Jimmy Clem) who is just as evasive on the subject as the townsfolk, but allows the group to stay the night when a storm closes in. During the storm Old Man Crenshaw asks Lockhart to help tend to an animal which he’s captured. When Lockhart looks he realises it’s an adolescent Bigfoot, whose capture causes the adult Bigfoot to attack the cabin. Will everyone survive the night? Will anyone get any footage of the creatures on film that isn’t from a distance so great that nothing clear can be seen anyway, so could easily just be a man in a Chewbacca costume? Will Bigfoot finally discover that there are several sires on the internet that sell shoes up to a size 20, meaning that just maybe it wont struggle to find comfortable footwear any longer?

Like Troll 2 (see here) this movie has a strangely misleading title. Boggy Creek 2 is actually the THIRD movie in the Boggy Creek series. Which does bring up my earlier line of thought, if this is the third movie, then why haven’t I heard of the first two? Is there really a shady underground of bigfoot movies that exist only for those willing to traipse through the Arkansas swamps to find a lost Blockbuster Video, that is still running unaware either of the creation of the DVD or that Blockbuster went under?

The fact that The Legend of Boggy Creek and more importantly it’s first sequel Return to Boggy Creek both seem to be overlooked/forgotten/ignored does give a lot of backing to my theory that a good portion of the IMDB Bottom 100 list is only on there because of the notoriety they’ve gained by featuring on Mystery Science Theatre 3000. Return to Boggy Creek has at the time of writing an equally low rating (2.2), but it doesn’t appear on the same list. I won’t even pretend to understand the algorithms as to how the list is constructed (I don’t even understand how Colin put together our list), all I know is that films have to have at least 1500 votes to qualify. This does make me wonder what films we’re missing out on due to them being so unheard of.

But what about the movie itself? Well taking inspiration from the real life Bigfoot, the filmmakers decided that being elusive was an important aspect this movie needed to include. Unfortunately the things they decided to make the most elusive were any sight of a gripping plot or a convincing monster. This movie’s most entertaining scene is when the group run across a rabid dog that attacks them forcing them into an abandoned house. I’m not saying that it’s a good scene, but Tim opening a closet to find something to cover a hole in the floor only to find the rabid dog inside (due to the closet wall being missing) did make me laugh whilst imagining this to be the episode of Scooby Doo where Scooby gets scratched on the nose by a rabid bat…

The Bigfoot costumes look as though they were monkey costumes left over from previous Halloween parties, and patched up with excess hair from Jimmy Clem’s chest and beard (the man is so hairy he could have laid on the floor of his cabin whilst Bigfoot attacked and disguised himself as a bear skin rug). I’ve seen so many films with disappointing monsters in them, but if the cabin door was smashed in by Sal Minella from The Muppets it would have been scarier.

The acting in most of the movies by this point really isn’t worth mentioning most of the time anymore, as there usually is very little to none present. However I have to say that it would have been nice if maybe Chuck Pierce Jr. had at least attended the acting class where he was supposed to learn to act like someone who knows how to put a bloody shirt on. Still at least Charles Pierce (who not only acted, but directed, produced and wrote this movie too. Reports that he did the catering are unconfirmed) didn’t try to get his son to sing like our last father/son duo in Eegah! (see here), so there is that to be thankful for.

Boggy Creek 2 really is one of the dullest movies we’ve had to endure. I think it has answered my earlier questioning about a lack of Bigfoot movies though. Movies about creatures who shy away from humans and never show signs of aggression end up being movies about people going camping and the only times I want to watch films like that are when they involve psychopaths in hockey masks, snotty nosed students being terrorised by a ghost witch or Barbara Windsor’s bra flying into Kenneth William’s face…

#42 Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues (1985) (Colin)

Cast: Charles B. Pierce, Cindy Butler, Chuck Pierce Jr, Jimmy Clem, Serene Hedin

Director: Charles B. Pierce

Genre: Horror

I didn’t know much about the next movie on our list, so I had to do a bit of research.

The first thing I noticed is that this was featured on an episode of MST3K which I have not seen yet.  This is good because no matter how bad the movie is, I now have a new episode of MST3K to watch! 

The next thing I noticed is that the name, Charles B. Pierce, seems to come up a lot.  He is the director, writer and ‘star’ of the next movie on our list, Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues, (1985) and he was also the producer on the original movie, The Legend of Boggy Creek, (1972).  However, the odd thing that I discovered is that it’s not actually the 2^nd movie in this franchise.  Boggy Creek II is technically Boggy Creek III….

In 1977, the sequel, Return to Boggy Creek, was released, however, Charles B. Pierce was not involved in this movie.  Pierce seems to have decided to completely ignore the original sequel and no reference is made to the 1977 film.  Did Charles B. Pierce have a chip on his shoulder?

On the surface, this to me seems like a vanity project for Pierce and that he wants to prove to the world that it was wrong for him to be excluded from the original sequel.  Was this the case?  And were the makers of the 1977 version right to leave Pierce out in the cold?

When Dr. Brant Lockhart, (Charles B. Pierce), receives a phone call about a mysterious creature who is hairier than Richard Keys, he decides to investigate.  A professor of Cryptozoology at Arkansas University, he enlists the help of his students Tim, (Chuck Pierce Jr), Tanya, (Serene Hedin) and for absolutely no reason at all, Tanya’s friend Leslie, (Cindy Butler).

The group set off in the campest Jeep ever made and set up base near Boggy Creek.  Lockhart tells the group the many tales he has heard about the creature, each one less interesting and strung out than the last.

There was the rancher, who lost his herd and saw the beast running away.  Next was a man who came across the creature whilst changing his tyre.  He was so scared that he went into a coma and never woke up, (can you spot the plot hole here?).  And then there’s the’ hilarious’ story of the man who encountered the creature whilst in the outhouse laying a cable.  He was petrified, but at least he was in the right place to crap himself.

The last story is mildly interesting, (for those who haven’t nodded off by this point), as we discover that a sheriff saw the beast in his back yard, (ooer, sounds a bit rude), and that in actual fact there is a mini-beast as well.  There are 2 Boggy Creek beasts!  Well 1 and 1/3………

Lockhart’s investigations takes him to Hillbilly stereotype, Old Man Crenshaw, (Jimmy Clem), a man who is a cross between the sheriff from Smokey and the Bandit and a beach ball in a beard.  Lockhart learns that Crenshaw has seen the beast on numerous occasions and is keen to learn more.  Crenshaw then asks Lockhart as to whether he is a doctor which can fix people, Lockhart explains he is the type of doctor you can buy online and you can print out a snazzy certificate.  Unperturbed, Crenshaw lets Lockhart into a secret.

Crenshaw takes Lockhart into a room and in a cupboard he reveals that he has kidnapped, (beast-napped?), the youngest beast.  Lockhart synapses fire up like a turtle in treacle: Maybe this is why the beast is angry and maybe this is what he is looking for……..

Can Lockhart rescue the child beast?  Will the daddy beast discover them first?  Will Lockhart ever manage to explain anything in a couple of simple sentences?

The answer to the last question is no!  Or as Lockhart would probably explain: You see there are 2 different answers you can give to that question.  There is the positive answer, the affirmative if you will, which would usually be indicated by a 'yes', 'yeah' or 'yay', (although in some circumstances a 'yay' is more an exclamation of joy, it can be used, in some accounts, to verify the positive answer to a given question).  On the opposite side you would have the negative, (we will assume that an undecided answer would not be given in this case and that a shrug of shoulders, a 'maybe' or a 'not sure' is out of the equation.  Presumably the person asking the question knows the answer as he watched the rest of the movie and so would probably not leave it open ended.  Anyway, this is why we will assume that an either 'yes' or 'no', (which is the negative answer which could be given.  Other examples include 'Nay', 'no way' or 'non', (but probably only if you’re French, which we will assume in this instance that as the person setting the question sets it in English, he is probably speaking to someone who is English, or who at the very least has a good grasp of the English language and who would therefore give an answer in the Anglo negative rather than a more Gallic response)).  Anyway, given all variables to this answer and like I say, as the person setting the question watched the entire movie and that he is now typing this really long explanation as a parody, (mocking if you will) of how Lockhart would respond to such a tea-time teaser, we could naturally assume the answer would be of the negative persuasion and would probably, (in all likelihood), be 'no'.  Or 'yes'; he may be being ironic here……(I think you get the idea).

This rather long paragraph sums up this movie, it is full of scenes and dialogue which go on for too long and don’t really go anywhere.

For example, there is a scene which a young man falls off his jet-ski and plunges into the water.  A Jaws-esque scene is played out in which the creature, from his point of view, is slowly moving towards this guy.  The young guy gets………. back on his jet-ski and moves off safely.  No suspense, no drama, no point!

Then there is Lockhart’s very long winded explanation about how the tracker on his computer works.  He gives, (what seems like), a 10 mins over-elaborate explanation, where ‘the green box is us, if a blip goes near to the green box, then it is getting nearer to us’ would have done!

The fault for this lies with Charles B. Pierce who wrote this script and who seemed to have an OK idea, (the beast is angry as it’s son has been taken by a human), but just didn’t know how to build the suspense or plot around it.  What we end up with is a movie which could have been told in half an hour and did not need 90 mins of my life ruined.

So Pierce isn’t a great writer, is he a good actor?

The answer is no, the script does not help but it feels like he is reading direct from the page with no thought or emotion into what he is saying.  He has the screen presence of a glass of water and is just as exciting.  There is no way he can command a lead role and should really have cast someone else instead of going it alone.

Which leads me onto direction, was he a good director?  The answer again is no, Tim, who is actually Pierce’s real life son, clearly got the role because daddy wrote and directed the movie.  The girls are there for no other reason than to scream and smoulder and the townsfolk are clearly not actors and are just, well, townsfolk.

There are many mistakes in the movie.  For example, Lockhart clearly calls Tim by his real name, (Charlie), in one scene.  Surely a director should spot this?  Also I mentioned earlier the plot hole in which a man who slipped into a coma after he saw the creature, but Lockhart is reciting the story.  Surely director and writer should have spotted that there was no way that Lockhart could know the story if the man had been in the land of nod as soon as he saw the creature and so had not spoken to anyone since?!?!  Every review I have read references this mistake, so why the hell did Pierce not spot this?

So was this an ego project?  Yes, absolutely.  In actual fact it feels like a college media studies student who refuses to work in a team, goes alone and produces an arrogant solo project which interests no-one but himself.  You can’t help but feel that some of the problems with this movie could have been resolved had Pierce allowed others to take up roles and to double check things.

Were the makers of the 1977 version right to leave Pierce out in the cold?  On the evidence of this movie yes they were, although maybe he would have fitted in better as part of a team.  In many ways I wish he had been involved in the ’77 movie, because that would have saved us from Pierce thinking he had to prove himself and producing this lifeless movie.

Obviously Pierce believed in his talents and that he could write, direct AND star in the same movie, however, the evidence is like the costume for the Boggy Creek beast;  it’s not at all convincing…….

#43 Going Overboard (Wes)

Going Overboard

It had to happen on a list of bad movies. We had to watch an Adam Sandler film at some point. Honestly I was quite surprised that it was this far into our list though. I mean I know he’s made some bad movies recently, but are any of them actually any worse than some of the other crappy comedies we’ve watched, like Norbit (see here) or Chairman of the Board (see here)? Well there was only one way to find out…

Shecky Moskowitz (Adam Sandler) is supposedly a wannabe stand up comedian who works on a cruise ship. After the regular ship’s “comedian” Dickie Diamond (Scott LaRose) gets locked in the toilet, everyone naturally assumes he has fallen overboard and drowned. So instead of mounting any type of search and rescue operation, they just allow Shecky to tell jokes that were old when Bob Hope started his career, in the desperate attempt to distract the people on the cruise ship, and the viewer at home, from the poor life choices that led them to be in/watching this crappy movie (eg like getting drunk and saying that watching the worst movies ever made sounds like a hilarious idea)…

As much fun as it is to knock Adam Sandler, he has made some movies that I love. Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, Punch Drunk Love and Hotel Transylvania are all brilliant. I’m even happy to sit and watch Little Nicky and The Waterboy, but he has made some absolute donkeys to counteract these movies though. What I didn’t realise is that he had set the bar so low at the start of his career, that no matter how bad a movie he makes now, it’ll invariably be better than Going Overboard.

Have you see or read any of the Harry Potter series? If you have then you should know what a Dementor is, if not they are magical beings that guard the wizard prison Azkaban. They do this by sucking all the happiness from the prisoners so they simply lose the will to try to escape; Going Overboard is a Dementor in movie form. This movie sucks all the joy from the world. It’s the movie equivalent of going to bed on a Sunday night knowing that when you wake up you have to go to work. It’s the movie equivalent of being given a piece of fruit for dessert. It’s the movie equivalent of being told there is no Santa Claus.

If you’re a Superman fan (hopefully not a Superman 4 fan though.. See here), then you’ll know who Bizarro is. If not he’s the Superman from another planet (htraE) in the DC Universe where everything is opposite to that on Earth. Well Going Overboard is like a Bizarro comedy movie. It’s actually an anti-comedy movie. It’s less funny than watching Bambi’s mother not escaping the hunters on repeat. It makes Mike Leigh’s most pessimistic movie, Naked, seem like a laugh riot. I listened to my Joy Division albums after watching this as I needed cheering up. It’s seriously that unfunny.

I honestly don’t understand how Sandler managed to stay acting after this movie. It is genuinely the worst comedy movie I’ve ever seen. The only way it could have been less funny would have been if someone dug up the remains of the Marx Brothers, fitted animatronics to their skeletons and made them remake a classic British sitcom for an American audience (OK, some have been good, but let’s not forget the pilots for Spaced or Red Dwarf, and trust me I’ve tried to, they just won’t go away).

Have I made it clear how unfunny this movie is yet? If you went to a stand-up show which was had your parents as the opening act who spent the entire time telling embarrassing stories about your childhood, whilst occasionally waving at you, who were then followed by a procession of various people from your past doing the same until you can stand the public humiliation no more, only to find out the night could actually get worse when Michael McIntyre walks onto the stage and announces he’s going to do a four hour set of his shit observations and they’ve locked the all the doors, including the ones for the toilet and you’ve just drank five pints of water, you’d still laugh more than you would at this movie.

This movie is the comedy equivalent of being told you have a sexually transmitted disease. This movie is the comedy equivalent of having to tell your children that Rover didn’t make it after being hit by a car. This movie is the comedy equivalent of doing your fly zipper up without being properly tucked away. This movie is the comedy equivalent to used needles in a children’s playground. This movie is the comedy equivalent of socks at Christmas. This movie is the comedy equivalent to finding out your babysitter is Jimmy Saville. This movie is the comedy equivalent to meeting the girl/guy of your dreams only to discover that their favourite Star Wars character is Jar Jar Binks and that they do the most accurate impressions of him, especially every time you have sex ("Me-Sah coming now!"). This movie is the comedy equivalent to learning that your child wants to become a mime artist. To put it in its most simple terms, this movie is the Nickleback of comedy!

This movie is without a doubt the worst comedy I’ve ever had to sit through. Which does make me worry slightly as it’s far from the last comedy on our list. It’s a shame that Adam Sandler couldn’t have used some of his subsequent wealth to sink this miserable movie to the ocean depths where it belongs. Avoid at all costs.

#43 Going Overboard (1989) (Colin)

Cast: Adam Sandler, Burt Young, Scott LaRose, Lisa Collins, Billy Bob Thornton, Billy Zone

Director: Valerie Brieman

Genre: Comedy

The next movie on our list stars Adam Sandler, which was a big surprise to me. Not so much that he is on the list, but that it’s taken so long for one of his movies to appear!

Don’t get me wrong, I actually like quite a lot of Sandler’s movies. Happy Gilmore (1996) is to this day one of my favourite comedies of all time. But I have also found other movies such as The Waterboy (1998) and The Wedding Singer (1998) to be laugh out loud funny; heck I even enjoyed the slightly less slapstick, but very enjoyable 50 First Dates (2004) with Drew Barrymore. The problem however, is that for every Happy Gilmore, you have 10 Little Nicky(s)!

When Sandler gets it right, his movies can be funny, clever and heartwarming, however, when he gets it wrong they can be humourless, flat and dull. So when our next movie, Going Overboard appeared on this list I did start to worry. Was this another Happy Gilmore or were we in for a Jack and Jill?

Going Overboard is a movie inside a movie. We are watching a film which General Noriega, (Burt Young), is watching and is a movie made by a film crew who are following Shecky Moskowitz, a young comedian trying to break into the big time. (It all sounds very complicated and clever, but it’s not, please bear with me).

Shecky works on the cruise ships as a glorified lacky and is desperate to be the ship’s comedian. That position, unfortunately, is already filled by Dickie Diamond, (LaRose), a popular figure, (absolutely no idea why, he doesn’t manage to crack a funny gag all movie), whose spot is very established.

However, Shecky does gets his chance when Dickie wakes one morning to feel a bit, well, dickie! Stumbling around on deck, he loses his hat which falls in the sea and he makes a bee-line for the toilet. After making some disgusting noises, he realises he has locked himself in the loo and is trapped! The rest of the crew, worried where their unfunny clown has disappeared to, spot his hat in the sea and thinks he has gone overboard and drowned. Shecky is then promoted to ship's comedian.

Whilst all this drama is going on, there are several beauty pageant contestants on board who are giving vox pops to the camera. One contestant, Miss Australia, decides to use her time to slag off General Noriega, which, as he is watching this movie, hears and takes great offence to. He sends 2 more idiots to the ship, loaded with machine guns and with strict orders to take Miss Australia out, (as in kill, not date).

Will Shecky's routine get any better? Who will save Miss Australia? And will someone, anyone, in the entire movie tell a decent joke?

The answer to the last question is sadly, no.

Now comes the point of my blog where I would normally review the movie, but dear reader, this is going to be extremely difficult as there is really not a lot to talk about.  Going Overboard is just a 90 minute bunch of nothing.

We are told from the off that this is a budget movie and they are not kidding.  Filmed with what appears to be one camera, (Fisher Price’s My First Camera), and a microphone which used to be a dog’s chew toy, Going Overboard really does have a budget feel.  This is not necessarily a bad thing of course, budget movies such as Blair Witch Project (1999), Napoleon Dynamite (2004) and Mad Max (1979), were fantastic movies and rightly went on to become very successful, but the difference is they feel like proper movies, Going Overboard feels like a proper mess.

Those other budget movies also had a script, which is very important.  This movie has Adam Sandler standing in front of a camera, gurning and talking bollocks for 90 mins, (actually a bit like Blair Witch then....).  His narration usually makes no sense and appears to be designed to sound intelligent and witty but often is jumbled and confused.  Unfortunately the storyline can not come to Sandler’s rescue as the plot is so thin that you can put it over a comb to make an inexpensive kazoo.

As for Sandler himself, well this movie just feels like an audition tape.  He tries acting, it doesn’t work.  He tries delivering clever lines, it doesn’t work.  He tries displaying emotion and showing range, it doesn’t work.  The only surprising thing about Sandler’s performance is that some studio thought, ‘Hey, that guy’s good’, and promptly threw movies at him and made him a multi-millionaire.  When you think about it logically, it doesn’t work.

The other thing that doesn’t work in this movie are the jokes.  Absolutely not one single joke hits the mark, in fact they were so far off the mark that they startled a snoozing lion in Botswana.  But one thing this movie does have is irony, in abundance!  It is ironic that a movie which contains not 1 but 2 comedians who constantly tell gags, does not contain 1 single gag throughout the entire movie!  I am trying to think of 1 joke I can share with you just to prove my point, but I can’t, that’s how memorable they were.  This movie makes Michael McIntyre look like Bill Hicks!

So who on earth is to blame for this movie?  These days Sandler writes, directs, stars and makes the tea in his films and so you can quite confidently lay the blame at his feet when another (Sandler movie) flops spectacularly at the box office.  However, for once he is not to blame.  The blame lies solely with director and writer, Valerie Brieman.

I actually get the feeling that rather than this movie being an audition for Adam Sandler, it’s actually an audition for Valerie Brieman.  She is desperate to show the world that she can produce a top quality movie on a tight budget……she can’t.  She wants to show the world she can write funny material…….she can’t.  She even gives herself a small part in the movie to show the world she can act…….she can’t.

Her part in the movie involves snogging the face of a ‘rock star’ from a band called ‘Yellow Teeth’, (cos he’s British, geddit?!?!) and is pure cringeworthy.  It reminds me of a segment called ‘The Hopefuls’ on Channel 4’s 90’s anarchic TV show, ‘The Word’.  If you haven’t seen it, the idea is basically that people will do absolutely anything to get on TV and have their 15 minutes, (to give you some examples, one person licks sweat of a fat man, one drinks his own vomit and one lucky chap snogs an old granny, tongues and all).

Valerie is another ‘Hopeful’ who desperately wants to be famous and will, it appears, do anything.  This does not seem to have worked however and she has only made a few movies since.  They seem to come around every 12 years and the good news is that the last movie was in 2012, so you have plenty of time to prepare yourself for the next pigswill on offer.

So was this Happy Gilmore or Jack and Jill?  Without a doubt Jack and Jill, Little Nicky and Grown Ups 2 all rolled into one mass crapball!

This movie can only really appeal to die hard Adam Sandler fans and only for the reason that this is Sandler’s debut film.  But as soon as they get the idea of what his performance was like, I am pretty sure they will abandon ship.