'Bogey Creek' director dies at 71

'Bogey Creek' director dies at 71
Charles Pierce helmed influential horror pic


By SHALINI DORE
Wed Mar 10 2010


Indie filmmaker Charles Pierce whose "Legend of Bogey Creek" inspired later horror pics like "The Blair Witch Project" died March 5 in Dover, Tenn., of natural causes. He was 71.


The 1972 low-budget "Bogey Creek" was based on a Texarkana bogeyman known as the Fouke Monster.


Daniel Myrick, director of "Blair Witch," paid tribute to the film in a 1999 interview with 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.' That was one of my favorites; it freaked me out when I was a little kid."


Born in 1938 in Hammond, Ind., Pierce ran an ad agency in Texarkana before entering showbiz. He worked as a set director and then started directing and producing low-budget horror pics. He made other horror pics such as "The Town That Dreaded Sundown," "Bogey Creek II" and "The Killer Bees."


He was among the writers credited Clint Eastwood 1983 starrer "Sudden Impact."