Charles Bryant Pierce (June 16, 1938 – March 5, 2010) was an American film director, screenwriter, producer, set decorator, cinematographer, and actor. Pierce directed thirteen films over the span of 26 years, but is best known for his cult hits The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972) and The Town That Dreaded Sundown (1976).
An Arkansas resident most of his life, Pierce made his directorial debut with Boggy Creek, a faux documentary-style film inspired by the legend of the Bigfoot-like Fouke Monster. Pierce followed that with several inexpensive, regional films set in the southern United States, including The Town That Dreaded Sundown, based on the true story of the Phantom Killer murders in Texarkana.
Pierce continued directing films into the 1980s. He is credited with co-writing the story for the Clint Eastwood film Sudden Impact (with Earl E. Smith). After years of pressure from producers, Pierce directed a Boggy Creek sequel, Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, which he considered the worst film of his career. It was later riffed on by the comedy television series Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Charles B. Pierce was born in Hammond, Indiana, on June 16, 1938, one of the three sons of Mack McKenny Pierce and Mayven Bryant Pierce. His family moved to the southwestern Arkansas city of Hampton when he was just a few months old. There he was a childhood friend and neighbor of future film and television director Harry Thomason, and the two made home movies together in their backyards using an old 8 mm camera. His first professional foray into media entertainment was in the mid-1960s as an art director at KTAL-TV in Shreveport, Louisiana. He later became a weatherman and hosted a children's cartoon show for that channel.
Pierce continued working in production jobs at television stations in Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas until 1969, when he moved to Texarkana, bought a 16 mm camera and started an advertising agency. He started a contract with Ledwell & Son Enterprises, a Texarkana-based firm that built 18-wheel trailers and farm equipment. Pierce developed commercials for the company that played throughout the Southwestern United States, using mostly footage he shot of trucks on the highway and farming equipment being used. He said the reputation he developed with those commercials later helped him launch his film career. Also during this time, Pierce played a character named Good Time Charlie, later Mayor Chuckles, on The Laffalot Club, also on KTAL-TV, a local Arkansas children's television show. Pierce launched his independent film career in the early 1970s, when he sought funding from L.W. Ledwell, the owner of Ledwell & Son Enterprises. Ledwell was skeptical of the idea, but ultimately agreed to provide about $100,000 of the $160,000 budget for Pierce's first film. Prior to his directorial debut, Pierce worked as a set decorator for television shows like the Western series Hondo and for films like Waco (1966) and Coffy (1973).
Pierce's directorial debut was The Legend of Boggy Creek, which was inspired by the Fouke Monster, a seven-foot-tall Bigfoot-like creature said to live in the swamps near Fouke, Arkansas. Pierce said he did not necessarily believe in the legend, but was fascinated with the stories. After interviewing Fouke residents who said they encountered the monster, Pierce became impressed with their authenticity and down-to-earth qualities. He approached Earl E. Smith, an acquaintance from the advertising business, to adapt those eyewitness tales into a screenplay. The film was shot at locations in Fouke, Texarkana and Shreveport, using a camera Pierce built himself at home. It was filmed in a faux documentary style, and included interviews with Fouke residents mixed with dramatizations of their supposed encounters with the creature. Like Pierce, the film's financial backers and many of the actors had never been involved in a film before.
Pierce cast the actors by approaching customers at a local gas station whenever he saw somebody that looked like they fit one of the parts. He hired high school students as crew members who helped load and move equipment. For the creature itself, he limited the sightings to shadowy figures because he felt the film would be more frightening if the creature was left to the viewer's imagination. Pierce sang the theme song featured in the film. Once the film was completed, he put the reel into the trunk of his car and drove to Los Angeles seeking post-production services. He met Jamie Mendoza-Nava, who owned a small post-production company and agreed to work on the film for limited up-front pay and a small percentage of the film's box-office receipts. Pierce could not find a major studio willing to distribute it, so he rented a local movie theater in Texarkana for one week to screen the film. He cleaned the property himself to prepare for the debut.
Released in 1972, The Legend of Boggy Creek premiered at what was later called the Perot Theatre, where lines stretched around the block to see it. Pierce did not expect it to become a financial success, but it made $55,000 in the first three weeks from that single theater. Eventually, Pierce entered into a distribution deal with Joy N. Houck, owner of the independent distribution company Howco, who paid Pierce $1.29 million for a 50 percent interest in the film. Pierce and Houck signed with American International Pictures for foreign and television distribution. It became a hit at drive-in movie theaters, eventually gaining a cult status and bringing Pierce a modicum of fame. At the time of the film's release, Pierce incorrectly predicted to newspapers that it would win several Academy Awards. Several similarly styled films about strange and allegedly true phenomena were released in subsequent years due to success of The Legend of Boggy Creek. Julius E. "Smokey" Crabtree, a Fouke resident who appeared as himself in the film, became disgruntled with the production company and filed a lawsuit against Pierce and his financial supporters. Pierce declined to speak to the media about the suit.
Following the success of The Legend of Boggy Creek, Pierce was encouraged to film a sequel, but resisted because he wanted to prove himself as a filmmaker rather than duplicate the same idea. He continued to make inexpensive regional films set in the southern United States, primarily targeting small-town and rural audiences. His family said Pierce liked to be continuously working and would start a new film immediately after finishing the last. His sophomore effort was Bootleggers (1974), a period action-comedy film about rival families making moonshine in the Ozark Mountains. It featured Slim Pickens and the first major performance of Jaclyn Smith, who went on to play Kelly Garrett in the television series Charlie's Angels. Pierce followed that film up with two Westerns released in 1976. The first, Winterhawk, was about violence erupting between Blackfoot Native Americans and white villagers. The film proved difficult for Pierce to shoot due to challenges from the weather and problems with the horses on the set. However, according to Pierce, Winterhawk was more widely seen than The Legend of Boggy Creek. His second Western was Winds of Autumn. Pierce co-wrote both films with his Boggy Creek partner, Earl E. Smith. Pierce made a trademark of casting his friends in his films, and Pierce himself performed minor roles in both Winterhawk and Winds of Autumn. During this period, Pierce continued working as a set decorator for films such as Black Belt Jones (1974).
Pierce returned to the horror genre with the 1976 film The Town That Dreaded Sundown, based on the true story of the Phantom Killer, an unidentified serial killer who murdered five people in Texarkana in 1946. Pierce remembered being scared by news stories about the killer during his youth in Hampton. He received some criticism for the graphic violence portrayed in the film, particularly one scene where the killer ties a woman to a tree, attaches a knife to the end of a trombone, then repeatedly stabs her while playing the instrument. Pierce said he purposely made the film violent because he felt the real-life situation was horrific and did not want to glaze over it. While filming horror scenes, he tried to create a suspenseful mood by clearing the set of everyone but the essential cast and staff, then refusing to let them talk to each other as the scenes were shot. Pierce appeared in The Town That Dreaded Sundown as police Patrolman A.C. "Spark Plug" Benson, an idiotic comic relief character. The name "Spark Plug" was a real-life nickname given to the director due to his energy. Pierce described The Town That Dread Sundown as a very easy and enjoyable shoot with no major problems on the set.