The Six Principal DVD Versions

1. Henstooth Video (July 2, 2002) 85 minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/6dsto8o

Good picture quality, a nearly perfect print, save one spot where the underlying print has a skip, at 32:54, and one loses a word of the song: "[Here] the Sulphur River flows..." It is this defect which makes the Cheezy Flicks print identifiable as being derived from the Henstooth. This one has a cute menu, featuring one of the Circes looking out the window; the window frame contains a small snatch of moving gifs featuring the Creature.

2. Sterling Entertainment (July 31, 2002) 85 minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/6e8bvs2

This print begins with the Cinema Shares International Distribution Corporation logo, something the others (except Beach) lack. The picture quality is a shade less than the Henstooth, and unlike the Henstooth, this one cuts off a couple of seconds at the end of the credits, which is maddening to a completist. Under the film title (5:40), the artifact "© 1975 Pierce Ledwell Productions" has been electronically added. In a few sections, the sound/picture timing is a couple of seconds off - one sees the cow startle and move before the Creature screeches (13:04). Very annoying when you're watching, once you've noticed it. These defects are also found in the Beach Productions version.

3. Education2000inc (February 2, 2002) 90 minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/6eruhzk

No doubt about it - this is the worst version, hands down. Edit: (Or was the worst version, until the On-Demand edition came out.) Picture is grainy, color bluish-green, contrast very poor, and dark - one can't make out much in the darker scenes. The print has an old, scratched "Rated G" bumper at the beginning. But it has one thing going for it, which might make it desirable to someone with the technical know-how to digitize, computer-enhance and improve the print: It's widescreen. But just watching it, that's a quality one can't appreciate, because the screen is compressed to fullscreen; everything's skinny. As tunch08 has noted on another thread, there's a small white dot in the lower righthand side of the picture that maddeningly remains for the entire film. The description claims to be 90 minutes, but it's no different from the rest - all of the versions clock in around 87 minutes.

4. Cheezy Flicks Entertainment (May 6, 2008) 85 minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/63z63jd

This one uses the Henstooth print, with its same identifying quirks, but has enhanced the color, resolution, and contrast slightly. As far as watching copies go, it's probably got the best picture, if you don't mind the Cheezy Flicks artifacts it imposes just after "This is a True Story," and again at the end, during the credits. There are some very old B&W Drive In theater bumps on a menu selection called "Intermission Time."

5. Beach Productions (November 22, 2009) 87 minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/67y7ua7

This one is a cheaper reissue of the Sterling, on a white paper-covered disc, with a color print copy of the case cover art.

6. Amazon Manufactured On Demand (March 28, 2012) 87 minutes.
http://tinyurl.com/nbf9qok

This one is burned onto a DVD-R, with no frills whatsoever. It is the worst of the group, for its picture is contained within a thick black frame that occupies fully one quarter of the available screen space; the picture itself is a small window in the center. Within that window, the picture is ostensibly full screen, but figures show that peculiar narrowing that denotes compression. The picture lacks resolution, so much so that most of the names on the end credits are unreadable yellow blobs. The sound is overloud, and lacks crispness; there is a lot of hissing and popping. This version does not have the Cinema Shares International Distribution Corporation logo at the beginning, but instead an ugly "Rated G" in poor condition. At 1:14:45 (panther tracks under the Ford house), there is traveling tracking static moving up and down the screen, revealing that this version was sourced from a VHS tape. Amazon ought to be ashamed, especially since there is a better version out there to use as a source - the free public domain version at Archive.org, in letterbox, no less: http://archive.org/details/TheLegendOfBoggyCreek1972
This was the version I'd hoped they'd dressed up, polished, and burned to a disc. I could not be more disappointed.

I hope these descriptions will help the would-be collector of this film to make an informed choice.

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