'Boggy Creek' Filmmaker Pierce Dead

Tulsa World

Charles B. Pierce, an independent filmmaker whose inexpensively made documentary-style drama "The Legend of Boggy Creek" influenced the hit film "The Blair Witch Project" decades later, has died at age 71.

Pierce, who grew up in Arkansas and made his films mostly in that state, died Friday at a Dover, Tenn., nursing home. A cause of death could not be obtained.

Pierce grew up in Hampton, Ark., and as an adult lived in nearby Texarkana, where he ran an advertising agency. But it was his 1972 low-budget movie that gained him fame.

"He really did change the face of filmmaking," Arkansas Film Commissioner Christopher Crane said. "With his model, many filmmakers became successful with the drive-in creature feature, so to speak."

The director of the 1999 box-office docudrama "The Blair Witch Project," Daniel Myrick, cited Pierce's film as an influence in an interview with the Tulsa World.

"We just wanted to make a movie that tapped into the primal fear generated by the fact-or-fiction format, like 'Legend of Boggy Creek,'" he told the newspaper in 1999. "That was one of my favorites; it freaked me out when I was a little kid. I was beside myself with fear for weeks after seeing that thing."

"Boggy Creek" was based on a local legend of a Sasquatch-like creature in Fouke, a town southwest of Texarkana, where retailers still capitalize on the fame of what was called the Fouke Monster.

Pierce's daughter Amanda "Amy" Squitiero said her father's autobiographical notes indicate

"Legend of Boggy Creek" was made for $160,000 but ultimately made $25 million after it became a cult hit.

Director and producer Harry Thomason grew up next door to Pierce in Hampton. "Charlie was one of the greatest storytellers in the world," Thomason said. "He had remarkable success when you think of it."

Thomason also praised "Bootleggers," Pierce's follow-up film, as "a very intelligent script with great acting."

Pierce's other directing credits include "The Town That Dreaded Sundown," "Winterhawk," "The Winds of Autumn," "Grayeagle," "The Norseman," "The Evictors" and "Sacred Ground."

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