The Dismal Swamp Monster

Located on Virginia's southeastern border with North Carolina, between Norfolk, Virginia, and Elizabeth City, North Carolina, is famous for its unique wilderness. The swamp encompassed millions of acres of marshy land.  

Today, it is home to one of the largest Black Bear populations on the East Coast, subtropical birds, butterflies, bobcats, white-tailed deer, and other unknown animals. Sightings of strange creatures and mysterious sounds coming from the swamp are being reported every year to well-known and established websites. 

These sightings coexist with the other events of high strangeness that have been reported through the years. The lady of the lake, the disappearing cemetery, the rise of a thunderbird from Native American lore are but a few of the tales.

The tales of the swamp are well known, yet, this is one of the least explored areas of the United States. The Dismal Swamp has been home for mysteries for centuries and reports of strange creatures have existed for generations. 

One of the oldest reports comes from a 1902 Newspaper article from the Richmond Dispatch.

The creature was larger than a wolf, with shaggy yellow hair, long hair and sunken eyes. In 1981, Ranger Pat Higgins reported in a Washington Post article that there is a creature 7 1/2-feet tall, hairy as a shag rug and smelling like a sewer that comes out of Dismal Swamp periodically to stomp through his park at night.He called it Skunk Foot. 

In folklore, one of the most famous cases of the dogman comes from Michigan and dates  back to the 1880s. Described as a seven-foot tall bipedal canine-like animal with the torso of a man and a fearsome howl that sounds like a human scream. There are similarities to reports. Dogmen have also been reported in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, and Kentucky. 

Also in folklore, Bigfoot is often described as a large, muscular, and bipedal human or ape-like creature covered in dark brown or black hair. Descriptions estimate a height of roughly 6–9 feet. Common descriptions include broad shoulders, no visible neck, and long arms,with some nighttime sightings mentioning yellow or red glowing eyes. There is also a putrid smell associated with sightings. While there are thousands of reports, the most famous is from the Patterson-Gimlin film in California from the late 1960s.  

Th Beast Within (2024)

I am normally not a fan of werewolf movies. Strange, because I am fascinated by cryptids and the strange creatures that roam the backwoods of the world. When I picked this one, I wasn’t sure what to expect. It is the 2024 entry, The Beast Within. 

Plot: After a series of strange events leads her to question her family's isolated life on a fortified compound deep in the English wilds, 10-year-old Willow follows her parents on one of their secret late-night treks to the heart of the forest.

I wasn’t quite sure this was going down the werewolf path at first and enjoyed the slight hints of folklore that was sprinkled in. Unfortunately, between the over use of symbolism and blatant hints held within the storyline, I felt like it drug along. The pacing and overall story was choppy and that outweighed some of the strong performances held inside.  The movie also lacked action, but it had some really good visuals and for a lower budgeted entry, it wasn’t that bad. In the end, this one is not the best, but it's not the worst. Maybe a fan of the werewolf genre would like it more, but for me, it didn’t hit home.

Dogman (2012)

 

 

After watching some decently violent flicks over the past few days, I decided to take a trip into some folklore. As a researcher of the fringe topics that populate our society like Cryptozoology, HAARP, UFOs and the Paranormal, I love movies that deal with the darkness that live in the strange outcrops of our minds. My selection for the night was the low budget entry Dogman from 2012.

 

 

Plot/ Hanklin Purvis enjoys the outdoors, and he loves to hunt. He and his wife, Dorothy, live on a farm in the rural mid-west. For some reason, during the season before autumn, things start happening. Once they discover that the wounds have a deadly bacteria and the clock is ticking for those infected, Francis Wellman, a Native American who believes she has discovered an ancient antidote.  

 

 

When I saw this at Family Video, I was not sure what to expect. Flicks from this genre seem to run the gambit from extremely violent to more legend or folklore based. This one is the ladder, as it is rooted deeply in the folklore surrounding this mysterious creature. While this is no blockbuster in any way, there is a genuine appeal here, with the legendary creature taking center stage in the background of this flick. The storyline is interesting and believable, the acting was good and there was an entertaining quality that some movies of this type lack. Yes, the movie does lack the gratuitous gore and violence that some horror fans see as a must, but that is hardly missed in this incarnation. Of course, as a researcher of unexplained animals, I may be a bit biased because to me the story is more important than the gore, but I enjoyed it. Is it a perfect movie, no, but if you like folklore driven flicks that take you inside a legend, you should enjoy it as well.