A local poacher, dynamite fishing on Bog Lake, awakens a centuries old monster. Two couples come to the lake to camp and fish. Alan and Mae Tanner (Glen Voros and Carol Terry) along with Chuck and Kim Pierce (Rohay North and Lou Hunt) are spending a few days at the lake. Mae and Kim are attacked and killed by the beast. Chuck and Alan report the incident to Sheriff Neal Rydholm (Aldo Ray).
A search party finds the bodies of the two women. Dr. Brad Wednesday (Marshall Thompson) and the county pathologist, Ginny Glenn (Gloria De Haven) autopsy the women. Ginny finds that the women were drained of blood. Inside the throat of one of the women she finds some organic material. It appears that whatever killed the women was alive.
Not satisfied with what the sheriff is doing Chuck and Alan decide to go after the creature themselves. They talk to an old woman, Adrianna (Gloria De Haven), who has lived in the woods for decades. She tells them that the creature is ancient and has been awakened from its sleep. It will feed on blood until it is sated.
Sheriff Rydholm realizes that he is in over his head. He tries several methods to kill the creature, including setting an explosive charge at the bottom of the lake. He then sends a couple men to dive into the lake to check it out. They find a clutch of eggs but at the cost of their lives.
As people continue to get killed, Brad and Ginny try to discover what the creature is and how to destroy it. What they do find out is that the blood of the creature is almost identical to that of the old hag Adrianna. Somehow the two are connected.
“Bog” was released in 1979 and was directed by Don Keeslar. It is a low budget American independent horror film. The movie was filmed in Wisconsin and used some local actors. It was produced by Bog Productions and Nelsen Communications and was distributed by Marshall Films.
As far as crappy movies are concerned, this is a whole lot better than I thought it would be. What helps the film is that there are actually some actors that can act, well at least some of the time. Of special delight was the addition of Leo Gordon as Dr. John Warren. His part is tiny, but he had a nice grounding affect to the movie. The beginning of the film features two couples that do nothing but squabble with each other. It’s a welcome respite when the creature starts attacking the women. My view was, yes, please kill these annoying people.
The creature itself is very rarely seen and for the most part from a distance. I’m not exactly sure what it looked like. That may be a good thing. The film does have a tendency to plod a little and the editing is really bad. The love scene between Thompson and De Haven is unbelievable and really not necessary. Yes, there are a lot of bad things about the movie, but I did find it fairly easy to watch and the explanation of what the creature was and how it related to the old hag was an interesting little flight of fantasy. I would classify it as a semi-good bad movie.
Gloria De Haven plays two parts in the film, Ginny Glen the pathologist and Adrianna the swamp hag.