Foran ultra low - budget movieabouta monster in a laketerrorizing a small town , 1979 ’s Bog is quirky enough to make it notable andcharmingly forged enough to make it thoroughly entertaining . Its highlights include a handwriting stuffed with belly laugh anda fish - humanity costumethat looks like a in-between - shoal artwork project .
Since it ’s being contribute to Shudder ’s cyclosis subroutine library this month — peculiarly , Shudder , Prime Video , and other sources have it labeled as being from 1984 , which feels way too deep if you actually view the movie and hear its pure ‘ 70 AM gold root song , “ Walk With Me”—we decided it was time to revisit this waterlogged should - be classical . It ’s no slap-up employment of picture palace , but there are far worse way to spend 90 minutes .
Directed by Don Keeslar and written by Carl Kitt , who have just a handful of other credits between them , Bog was fritter in Wisconsin , but we ’re give minimum stage setting information beyond the lake and the contiguous burg where all the action mechanism accept place . The movie is called Bog , the lake is called “ Bog Lake , ” and there ’s really more lake than bog down going on , but we ’re still meant to believe there ’s some form of Swamp Thing or Black Lagoon state of affairs at hand . The plot palpate like a proto - 10 - Files monster - of - the - calendar week thread as we see a sea poker using dynamite as a sportfishing method accidentally awakens something that ’s been lurking in the lake for years . He does n’t live long enough to rue it , and the creature shortly proceed on to a couplet of “ metropolis broads ” reluctantly chit-chat the area with their Budweiser - fuel hubby .
Screenshot: Marshall Films
The pig , the townsfolk doctor , and Ginny , the chipper local diagnostician played by Gloria DeHaven — one of a few Hollywood veterans in the cast , along with Aldo Ray , Marshall Thompson , and Leo Gordon — are squeeze to reckon with a bizarre newfangled threat in their biotic community that drains the profligate of its victims for unknown reasons . ( The hombre running the townspeople ’s triggerman shop , however , is n’t all displeased about all the young stage business he ’s suddenly picking up . ) “ Could we have a Dracula running loose out there ? ” Ginny wonders , in one of her few lines of dialogue not overstuffed with aesculapian jargon . While a swamp vampire is dead a monster deserving building a creature feature of speech around , Bog ’s antagonist is possibly even unearthly , and it get a wonderfully shadowy backstory good manners of Adrianna , the movie ’s self - described “ old hag of the wood , ” who ’s also played by DeHaven in a move that feels more economical than anything else .
Adrianna ’s explanation of the monster : “ Ancient , long dead through all the centuries . But alive ! It feasts on rip while alert , and once satisfied , it kip . Years before , it could sleep a thousand months . Now , too many occur deep into the woods and wake up it . So it must feed again . [ It sleeps ] in the slime at the bottom of the lake . ” We come to find out that Adrianna has a psychical connection to the creature , and also share bloodline with it , which has something to do with the creature ’s pauperization for human blood to produce eggs that ’ll ensure future generations of peat bog giant . The skill , for all Ginny ’s lecture of sophisticated microscopes and chemical compound , is a little murky here .
But that ’s forgivable — and really , the scenes in Ginny ’s research lab are stuffed with unwilled glee and what we ’re intend to believe is intimate tenseness between her and Thompson ’s Dr. Wednesday . Bog runs barely 90 minutes , so there ’s never much time between attacks , which are mostly render by showing the creature ( which has a amazingly feline growl ) in silhouette , or as a disembodied claw , or merely in the imagination of the viewer as its latest dupe turns to the television camera and screams their head off . But Bog does n’t impoverish arctic - suit behemoth fans of some of the sweetest cheeseflower they ’ll ever see , with a scene filmed in full daylight that designate the Pisces the Fishes - head fauna in all his arm - waving glory , moaning as he ’s spray with pesticides the deuced jester humans think will curtail his sovereignty of terror . You absolutely terminate up rooting for the cat , and the picture show knows it — not for nothing does it hopefully publish “ The End ? ” after the full-grown finale . Alas , we ’re still waiting for Bog 2 : Back 2 the Lake .
Ginny, Dracula theorist.Screenshot: Marshall Films
Bog stream on Shudder begin April 10 .
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