Creature From Black Lake

We screen a campy, vintage creature feature about a hairy humanoid!

"Creature From Black Lake" - Directed by Joy Houck, Jr. - (Synapse Films)

Released in 1976, this horror film was made well before sophisticated special effects came into being but viewers will still have a fun experience and the film, while sometimes predictable, does not venture too far into the hokey. It seems that no one in the area of Oil City, Louisiana has ever encountered the Big Foot-like creature from Black Lake and lived to tell the tale, except for trapper Joe Canton, here played by fabled character actor Jack Elam. The film opens with a momentarily tranquil scene of two trappers out on the swampy waters but you guessed it, the creature comes along and rocks their boat but good. Cut to a faraway college campus where grad students are at a lecture about cryptids, and where Pahoo and Rives (Dennis Fimple, John David Carson) announce their intention to go to Oil City and find out once and for all what's going on. Upon arrival the guys first tangle with Sheriff Billy Carter, played by Bill Thurman, who warns them away from the area. Then the real fun starts; the pair have an encounter outside the barn they're staying in, at a campsite where they're camping with local girls and ultimately at Canton's shack house where he shoots at the creature right through the shack wall. Later there's another confrontation while Rives is in the pair's van when the creature pushes it down a hill and into a tree. The horror is mixed with bits of humor here and there and this late night favorite, now on Blu-ray for the first time, will be a hit with monster movie fans who don't take things too seriously.

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