For those who love watching films with Bigfoot, look no further than the 1976 thriller, Creature from Black Lake. This creature classic has a pair of legendary actors in Jack Elam and Dub Taylor, cinematography by Dean Cundey, a somewhat scary looking creature and lots of swamp cheese. This movie may give viewers a sense of nostalgia of horror and science fiction B movies from the fifties!
A pair of grad students Pahoo (Dennis Fimple, The Apple Dumpling Gang, Bootleggers and Rives (John David Carson, Empire of the Ants, Pretty Woman) go to Louisiana to investigate a story about a sasquatch creature that has been seen there. None of the townsfolk want to talk about it except for trapper Joe Canton (Jack Elam, Kansas City Confidential, Kiss Me Deadly, Rio Lobo). Even sheriff Billy Carter (screen legend Bill Thurman, Zontar, the Thing from Venus, Curse of the Swamp Creature, Silverado) doesn’t want to talk about the creature, telling Pahoo and Rives to keep away from the swamp. Through a bribe, the students do get to interview the Bridges family led by Grandpa Bridges (Dub Taylor, Burnt Offerings, Used Cars), where he talks about the creature menacing his home. Disregarding further warnings from the sheriff, the ambitious students finally encounter the Bigfoot creature, leading to disastrous results! Sheriff Carter and Joe Canton need to rescue the two boys before they face certain doom!
Creature from Black Lake is an entertaining and at times, compelling movie. Director Joy Houck, Jr. opts to save shots of the creature toward the latter half of the film to build up a suspenseful climax. Yes, it is a campy, low budget, swamp-schlock film, but it’s a lot of fun! After watching the movie several times, the film has grown on me. Roy Tatum plays the extremely strong and ferocious creature! Legendary cinematographer Dean Cundey (Halloween, Back to the Future, The Fog, The Thing) captures a lot of great swampy scenic Louisiana locations!
After being released on DVD a few times with some releases looking better than others, Synapse Films has finally given Creature from Black Lake a definitive Blu-ray release. The film is advertised as having a “Brand-new 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative”; Synapse’s Blu-ray doesn’t disappoint! This release is widescreen in its original 2:35: 1 aspect ratio. I can confidently say that the video quality for this movie has never looked as clean as it does here and is easily the most attractive release! The image is so clear and polished that you can now see the creature terrorizing people! On older DVD’s, the image was often so blurry and murky that you were unable to get a really good view of the monster! And some releases had the film in the wrong aspect ratio, making it even more difficult to sit through!
Colors for this Blu-ray release look extremely strong and bold, especially blues, browns, and greens, that boast a great deal of sharpness. Details to both outdoor and indoor scenery look stunning with incredibly rich textures. Black levels appear balanced with excellent shadow detail. Flesh tones look accurate as well. Print damages, such as speckles and lines are minimal. The release is nothing short of a major revelation and am quite pleased that we can now see the film with the best video presentation available!
The DTS-HD MA English 2.0 Mono soundtrack is also crisp with the dialogue and other action sounds such as screaming, and monster’s roars coming in clearly. The music by Jaime Mendoza-Nava also sounds excellent. No hissing, crackling or other audio defects were detected. Optional English subtitles are offered on this Blu-ray.
There are some extras for this Blu-ray as well including a commentary track with author/filmmaker Michael Gingold and film historian Chris Poggiali. They cover a lot of ground for Creature from Black Lake and is certainly worth a listen.
A featurette, Swamp Stories with Director of Photography Dean Cundey, who looks back at Creature from Black Lake, sharing some stories about filming the movie in a small town in Louisiana.
The release also includes the original theatrical trailer and a radio spot.
Also worth noting, this Blu-ray has exclusive slipcover design from Justin Coffee which is limited to only 2500 slipcovers, so if you want the slipcover, don’t wait too long!
After waiting for this release for quite some time, this Blu-ray of Creature from Black Lake is most likely going to be the holy grail for its home video releases. With excellent audio and video quality to go with the extras, I can easily give this offering my highest recommendation!
Creature From Black Lake
Director – Joy Houck, Jr.
Cast- Jack Elam, Dub Taylor, Dennis Fimple, John David Carson
Country of Origin- USA
Distributor –Synpase Films
Number of Discs – 1
Reviewed by – David Steigman
Date –9/4/22