CreaturefromBlackLake

Creature from Black Lake (1976)

This movie is about two college students, Pahoo and Rives, from the big city of Chicago head down to Louisiana to investigate some Sasquatch sightings. Along the way they hear stories about various encounters with the creature (as the locals refer to it). That is when the locals are friendly enough to actually talk to them about their experiences. The local sheriff just wants them out of town so they quit stirring up trouble. Of course they don’t leave town and keep pursuing the creature. But will they like what they find when they do finally come face to face with the Creature from Black Lake?

This is a surprisingly good movie. The main characters of Pahoo and Rives are fun to watch and have a great chemistry going between them. Much of the movie is just the two of them researching and interviewing people, which could have made for a boring movie. The fact they are so likeable and play so well off of each other makes the movie work. This of course is partly due to the well-written script and the good job by the actors that portrayed the character, Dennis Fimple (House of a 1,000 Corpses) and John David Carson. Now there is no shortage of Bigfoot/Sasquatch in the movie, though it remains mostly in the shadows. But what drives this movie and makes for a good time are the characters. Speaking of characters the one other cast member that I needed to mention is Jack Elam. I guarantee you if you like westerns you will know who I’m speaking about. He does an excellent job in the role of the drunken trapper Joe Canton, one of the few people willing to talk about the creature. This is similar to most of the other characters that Elam played at this stage in his career, but he had it down and does a good job.

While the creature is around a lot you never really get to see it on screen clearly. I imagine this was done to protect what probably was a weak costume. But it is done with such skill by the director that the creature’s lack of screen time isn’t noticeable at all. The movie also does a great job of building tension and being kind of scary. That is pretty damn impressive for what could have been a cookie cutter drive-in Bigfoot movie. The one thing that did bug me was some odd camera mechanical like camera work. I think they had some sort of machine moving the camera back and forth for close-ups in several of the scenes. This looks really odd and is kind of shabby filmmaking, which given how well the rest of the movie is put together was sort of odd.

Is Creature from Black Lake a classic movie? No not really, but for a lower budget drive-in flick about a Bigfoot you can do much worse. I doubt that the Creature from Black Lake will hold much interest for anyone that isn’t a fan of Bigfoot or drive-in movies. But if this is something that you might be interested in I recommend tracking down a copy.

3 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer