"Legend of the Bog" DVD

Legend of the Bog is one of those strange sort of movies that's really rather tough to talk about. As you can see above, it's a clear two star but mostly because on the whole it's rather unspectacular.

Basically, the plot deals with things called "bog bodies", which are a kind of two thousand year old corpse that's been preserved in peat bogs. The things float to the surface every so often, or are disturbed by farming or development or similar such what have you. This time around, one of these well-preserved corpses comes back to life to get some payback on the folks that brought it up, and whoever else happens to get in the way.

The strange thing about Legend of the Bog is that it contains a whole lot of deaths, but only a handful of them are actually caused by the bog body. The rest, meanwhile, are caused by random accidents caused by desperation and / or sheer stupidity.

It's hard to get behind a horror flick where most of the targets kill themselves off, because it's so very unfulfilling. The whole point of a horror movie is to get some kind of monster to kill off people and get the people to band together to kill off the monster, not have a whole bunch of people do idiotic stuff and kill THEMSELVES off as though they're all in a mad dash to try and win the Irish equivalent of the Darwin award.
It's a fair enough concept--we've had bog monsters before, and bog monsters that just happen to be enormous, well-preserved Irishmen works out all right for the most part. But since so many of the cast dies off because of a combination of accidents and their own stupidity there's a serious loss of satisfaction here.

The ending is marginally satisfying if for no other reason than they manage to kill off the bog monster--it's really sort of a foregone conclusion so it's not really a spoiler.

The special features include your choice of English or Spanish subtitles, and trailers for Know Thy Enemy, Harder They Fall, Never Surrender, Octane, and Legend of the Bog.

All in all, Legend of the Bog isn't exactly the best horror movie you'll see this week, but there's vastly worse, and if you're looking for something a bit out of the ordinary this may well prove useful.

Legend of the Bog
**
DVD
Directed by Brendan Foley
Written by Brendan Foley
Starring Vinnie Jones, Jason Barry, Nora Jane Noone, Adam Fogerty
Produced by Joe Condren, Paul Valentine, Peter Burrell, Brendan Foley
R
92 mins
2009

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