Trailer of the Week: The Evictors (1979)

Unfortunately out-of-print horror from Charles B. Pierce.

Please Don't Return to Boggy Creek

Arkansas filmmaker Charles B. Pierce took out this full-page ad in Boxoffice magazine to deny any connection to the unsanctioned, G-rated sequel Return to Boggy Creek (1977), brought to you by Texas producer/director Tom Moore.


Pierce would later produce his own official sequel, Boggy Creek II, in 1985. Moore also directed Mark of the Witch, and had a hand in Horror High.

BoxOffice Covers: The 1970s, Part 2

We wrap up our look at 1970s BoxOffice magazine covers with two of my favorites -- Horror High and Creature From Black Lake -- as well as non-horror offerings from Alaska's Chuck Keen (Timber Tramps), North Carolina's Earl Owensby (Seabo), Arkansas legend Charles B. Pierce (The Norseman), and Florida fave William Grefe (The Godmothers, complete with a staged shot of Grefe and producer Socrates Ballis with the cast in gangster drag).

BoxOffice Covers: The 1970s, Part 1

A selection of BoxOffice magazine covers featuring regional horror releases. Tomorrow, I'll post a few more goodies, in addition to covers featuring some more esoteric, non-horror releases from regional directors/producers.

Trailer of the Week: Boggy Creek II (1985)

Charles B. Pierce's official follow-up to The Legend of Boggy Creek, featuring the director and his son in key roles.


BOGGY CREEK 2, TRAILER by chefandew

Trailer of the Week: The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1977)

Another based-on-true-events flick from Charles B. Pierce. Someone release this on legit DVD!

Trailer of the Week: The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972)

Sasquatch terror from Arkansas legend Charles B. Pierce -- based on a true story! Sort of.

The Town That Dreaded Negative Publicity

A few blurbs on Charles B. Pierce's The Town that Dreaded Sundown, one of his best films and still criminally unavailable on DVD.

From The Northwest Arkansas Times, Jan. 27, 1977

Phantom Killer Still Haunting Texarkana

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) -- Does a phantom killer still lurk in the streets of this city on the Texas border? City leaders say no. Advertisements on television and in newspapers say yes.

"In 1946 this man killed five people. Today he still lurks the streets of Texarkana, Ark.," say the ads for the movie "The Town That Dreaded Sundown."

"The ad is too much -- that's just not true," says Mayor Harvey Nelson. "There's objection that this whole thing will be spreading fear in the community. There are relatives of the victims still living here, and this is very unpleasant to them."

The movie is based on the Phantom Killer murders, which occurred between March and May 1946. The victims were usually young people parked in lovers' lanes. The men were killed first, shot in the head. The women were tortured before they were killed.

Four of the deaths occurred on the Texas side of the border, one in Arkansas. City leaders complain that the ads single out the Arkansas city.

The murders were never solved, the killer never punished.

"The fellow they thought -- but couldn't prove -- was the Phantom was sent to prison in Leavenworth, Kan.," said Harvey Wood, executive editor of the Texarkana Gazette. "It is absurd to say the Phantom is still at large. It scares the children."

Nothing like the panic that occurred in 1946 has been sparked by the movie.

"No one is going around locking their doors, afraid to come out like they did back then (in 1946)," Wood added. "People have lived through so many Phantom stories they're not upset anymore -- except the kids."

Police Captain Walter Weir added: "There's been no problem that I've heard of. Everyone's going to see the movie, but there's nothing like a panic."

Nelson said he hasn't and won't go see the R-rated movie, which has been playing in town for nearly a month. "I wouldn't be interested. I lived through it. I like tings that are amusing. This isn't amusing."

Capt. M.T. Gonzaullas of the Texas Rangers was in charge of the investigation, and is a key character in the movie. Now 85 and living in Dallas, Gonzaullas said Wednesday that he's still devoted to solving the Phantom Murder case.

Is the Phantom Murderer still at large? "That's the 64-dollar question," he said.

From The Oakland Tribune, Feb. 28, 1977

Film Angers Town

TEXARKANA, Ark. (AP) -- City councilmen have voted to file a lawsuit against the producer of the movie "The Town That Dreaded Sundown" for advertising that "a phantom killer still lurks in the streets of Texarkana, Ark."

City Atty. Joe Griffin said the suit was prompted when Texarkana officials visited Washington, D.C., and were kidded about the advertisement.

John Stroud, a lawyer for producer Charles B. Pierce, said Pierce already has asked distributors of the film to change the newspaper and television ads.

The movie is based on the Phantom Killer murders that occurred between March and May 1946. Five persons were killed, and no one was arrested despite a massive investigation.

**The article below predates the film's release, but includes the interesting bit of trivia that the governor's wife was the script supervisor on Town! David Pryor, coincidentally, also served as a U.S. Senator from 1978 to 1997, and his son, Mark Pryor, now holds his former Senate seat. At the time of this article, the Pryors were separated, but later reconciled.

From The Northwest Arkansas Times, Oct. 20, 1976

Barbara Pryor Has Movie Job

LITTLE ROCK (AP) -- Arkansas First Lady Barbara Pryor -- the estranged wife of Gov. David Pryor -- has become the secretary-treasurer of a new movie production company.

The company, Fair Winds Productions Inc., is scheduled to shortly begin filming "Wishbone Cutter," a western, along the Buffalo River.

Mrs. Pryor will be co-producer of the movie, an official said.

The company is headed by Earl Smith, who has been associated with some of Charles B. Pierce's Arkansas-based productions.

Smith said Mrs. Pryor became interested in movie production while working as a script supervisor on the Pierce production of "The Town That Dreaded Sundown," filmed in Texarkana.

He said Mrs. Pryor is talented and "extremely efficient."

Pryor's office said the governor has nothing to do with the film.

The Legend of Charles B. Pierce, 1938 - 2010

Arkansas filmmaker Charles B. Pierce, the auteur behind The Legend of Boggy Creek and The Town that Dreaded Sundown, passed away last week in Dover, Tenn. He was 71.

If there were a Mount Rushmore of regional filmmakers, Pierce's mug would be right up there alongside George Romero and Herschell Gordon Lewis. While it doesn't necessarily have the same cultural cachet as Night of the Living Dead or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Legend of Boggy Creek is a touchstone film for fans who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s and had even a passing interest in bigfoot. The supposedly true story of the Fouke Monster -- a hairy biped that supposedly roamed the Fouke, Ark., region in the late 1960s and early 1970s -- terrorized legions of young viewers who saw the film either during its initial release or one of its many, many TV airings.



When I started working on The Dead Next Door, Pierce was at the top of my interview list; unfortunatley, he was already in poor health by the time I tracked him down, and the interview never happened. I have tracked down various Pierce- and Boggy Creek-related items from a number of old newspapers and magazines, so I'll try to post those over the next week or so.

Pierce worked in advertising, and even appeared as a kiddie show host on Texarkana television before launching his film career with Boggy Creek. The low-budget faux documentary reportedly made $25 million, and he followed up with a string of horror films, westerns and even an ill-fated viking movie starring Lee Majors (The Norseman, 1978). Along the way he also found time to write the original story for the Dirty Harry flick Sudden Impact (1983).

Among his later horror offerings were Boggy Creek II (1983, which featured Pierce and his son in lead roles, both wearing alarmingly tiny cut-off denim shorts), and The Town that Dreaded Sundown (1977), which was based on the unsolved Texarkana Moonlight Murders that took place in the 1940s. As with most of Pierce's "based on a true story" projects, this one took significant liberties with the source material (the memorable death-by-trombone sequence being an obvious highlight).

In 2008, the Little Rock Film Festival honored Pierce with a tribute that included a Q&A between Pierce and childhood friend Harry Thomason. The Festival also established the Charles B. Pierce Award for the best film made in Arkansas.

You can read Pierce's Associated Press obituary here, or check out the coverage in the Texarkana Gazette.