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Movie: Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues:
...And continues, and continues, and
continues, until there is no joy or love left in the world. But
I get ahead of myself. Here's the story:
Doc Lockhart, a
professor at the University of Arkansas (which is full of
"insane hog callers," according to the movie -- and they mean
that as a good thing) is a specialist in what one might call
Boggy Creek Monster Studies. For years he's been tracking the
legend of a large sasquatch-like creature that inhabits the
bottom lands of Arkansas. (Yeah, kiss my bottom lands, one is
tempted to say. But doesn't. Sorry, I digress again in my
eagerness to get to the hating of this movie.)
Anyway --
multiple sightings of this beast have been reported over the
years by many Arkansans, including a bland deputy sheriff, an
old guy who doesn't know how to change a tire, and an
intestinally active hick lawyer.
After fresh reports come in,
Doc (a nickname which connotes an affection that this crabby,
self-important bastard does not earn) gathers a team to go down
there to investigate. His crack research staff includes his
prize pupil Tanya, whose prized-ness seems to be based mostly on
her penchant for not wearing a bra; her friend Leslie, who
applies makeup with a trowel and whines incessantly; and Tim, a
nearly mute, constantly shirtless boy who is in real life Chuck
Pierce, the son of writer/ director/ producer Charles B. Pierce,
who plays the loathsome Doc. Tim's state of shirtlessness might
be explainable as something for the ladies if he were not
basically a series of pipe cleaners connected at the top by a
blonde wig -- but Dad probably had a hand in the casting, I'm
guessing.
As the four get deeper into Boggy Creek country, they
meet progressively smellier people and have small and unthrilling encounters with the creature. Until they meet the
real creature -- a big, fleshy, bearded mountain man named
Crenshaw, who wears nothing but stained overalls (one strap
unfastened, to titillate, I suppose) and a thick, tight broccoli
rubber band around his head which looks very painful. Crenshaw
supposedly has some knowledge of the creature. The creepy,
dyspeptic Doc finally discovers that Crenshaw is hiding a baby
Boggy Creek creature in his shack, and is setting fires nightly
to ward off its mother. Why? This is a subject for further
studies by the Boggy Creek Monster Studies Department at that
insane hog-callin' school.
And oh yeah, Doc tells a lot of
stories in flashback. One is about a guy who gets so scared by
the Creature he falls into the hole in his outhouse and gets his
own feces all over him. Yay!
— Bill Corbett
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Prologue:
The SOL starts a Cub Scout den. Crow has made a macaroni replica
of Van Gogh's Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear. Servo turns up in
a Brownie uniform which he got out of a discount bin. He says
the uniform is much less constricting, what with his hoverskirt
and all.
Segment 1:
On the SOL, Mike and Crow admire the noodle-based Van Gogh.
Servo has now changed into his Flemish glassblower costume,
which he also grabbed out of the discount bin. That Servo!
Down in Castle Forrester, Pearl has come up with an ingenious
way to rule the world: have Brain Guy cut off power to all the
world's major cities, while Bobo simultaneously buys up the
world's supply of potatoes -- since, as many grade school
science fair projects will tell you, potatoes can conduct
electricity. But Bobo gets distracted from the latter task,
simply buying a potato smoothie for himself at the co-op.
Pearl's plans are thwarted.
Segment 2:
Crow and Servo are caught in the middle of a tussle. Mike comes
in, wants to know what's going on. To find out, they deploy the
technique of flashbacks used to such great effect in the movie.
But as Crow, then Servo, then Mike, each in turn flashes back to
the fight, the memory gets hazier and more Vaseline-covered.
Crow does promise, however, that his next flashback will contain
a cool car chase.
Segment 3:
Down in the Castle, Pearl announces that she's going to start
trolling for lumpy, disposable income-disposing tourists by
spreading word of the Legend of Forrester's Swamp. The guys on
the SOL immediately conclude that it is Bobo. She plays coy but
employs Hank Brain Guy, Jr. to sing his haunting folk song about
the Legend. It's long on intro and short on actual song.
Segment 4:
Inspired for some reason by a quick shot of an old man whittling
in the movie, Servo starts a whittling business, WHITLtech. But
it's updated for our times: a huge factory, run efficiently and
with the bottom line in mind, mass-producing small slightly
pointed sticks. He also has a bunch of WHITLtech plants
"overseas." Mike voices some opposition, but Servo has to leave
in the middle of their talk to brutally suppress some union
organizers on the factory floor.
Segment 5:
Crow imitates Crenshaw from the movie, starting fires on the SOL
bridge. He and Servo are playing Captive Baby Boggy Creek
Creature and Big Smelly Mountain Man. But they get tired of this
and go off to play Wounded Baby Unicorn and Skinny Sociopathic
Janitor instead, leaving Mike with the spreading fires.
Presumably, poor Mike burns to death. But it's just a show, I
should really just relax.
Stinger:
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First, an open letter to Arkansas: For
someone from Brooklyn, N.Y., I have known a disproportionate
number of your native sons and daughters, in college and
elsewhere. To a person they have been intelligent, creative, and
unfailingly friendly and polite. I will not open the question of
that randy fellow occupying the Oral Office right now. But let
me say this in no uncertain terms: YOU DO YOURSELF GRAVE HARM IN
LETTING CHARLES B. PIERCE MAKE MOVIES ABOUT YOU. After seeing
Boggy Creek II, I not only never want to visit Arkansas, I want
it wiped off the map with extremely extreme prejudice. This is
way over the top, but neither is it fair or decent of you to
support Mr. Pierce's poisonous moviemaking IN ANY WAY. Please
desist before you do irreparable damage to your fine state, if
you haven't already. Thank you.
Now. My reflections:
God, this one was painful! It's the kind of movie that seems to
hate you; to wish you active harm; to kick sand in your eyes and
make you cry. And for me, this was personified by Mr. Charles B.
Pierce, who is apparently responsible for every single aspect,
every nano-second of this cruel and unusual bit of celluloid. He
chose to write and play a grim, hostile, condescending,
know-it-all of a man, a character who is proven superior to
everyone else in the story again and again, who drills his lousy
stinking voice-over narrative into our heads every freaking
minute of this film, and who then has the temerity to wrap his
movie up suggesting his sour Nazi of a character is really an
ecological servant of God. To Mr. Pierce: bite every single inch
of me! And do it now, and then do it again! By comparison to the
pain caused by Doc/Pierce, Crenshaw the mountain man was an
urbane delight. And the poop flashback was an utterly charming
Noel Coward romp.
A note about this outhouse classic, though: we had to cut a lot
of it. Really. Imagine what was not there in that scene. It was
there. I'm talking sound effects, grunting, and everything. the
first time we saw it we had to race each other out of the room
to vomit.
I enjoyed singing and playing the gee-tar to Mary Jo's Legend of
Forrester Swamp lyrics, which were quite hilarious and very Mary
Jo-ian. And I was pleased to share the stage with editing wizard
Brad Keeley as a cute little country boy, in his first
appearance since playing the cute little Amish boy in Agent for
HARM. I regret our show was cancelled (don't let them tell you
otherwise, it's all spin) for many reasons, but one is that I
never got to work with Brad playing other than a cute little
tyke. He might have made a good psychopathic, shiv-wielding
villain or something. Albeit a cute one.
Brain Guy was fully clothed throughout this show, and that was
good for everyone.
— Bill Corbett
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