Beast of Bladenboro documentary release is Thursday night

BLADENBORO — On the 68th anniversary, a documentary is being released Thursday on the Beast of Bladenboro.

The roughly one-hour film ends with about a 10-minute interview of David Weatherly, the writer and co-producer along with Billy Lewis. Weatherly has researched a number of tales, he describes, for better than 40 years and finds this one as unique as any.

The film interviews a number of townspeople, many of whom either were alive and remembered the 1950s or who had kin folk that had shared information with them. Collectively, they speak with belief of what took place and where attribution should lie.

A beast. In and around Bladenboro.

They recall the three theaters and drive-in that populated Bladenboro’s business district back in the day. They contrast the differences in how news traveled.

And, in the end, all who are interviewed agreed there was something though no one is exactly sure of what. Even Weatherly.

It’s a mystery, he says, that will last another 100 years.

Legend has it the beast first appeared in Clarkton on Dec. 29, 1953. There, a resident said a cat-like animal, sleek and about five-feet long, had riled up her dogs.

Two days later, the creature was in Bladenboro. Over the course of about a week, several animals were killed. In most all accounts, their blood was drained.

Then as now, there is no animal known to do that after a kill. Hence, the word vampire entered and stayed in the conversation.

Quite quickly, word spread and hunters converged.

“The thing we had to start worrying about was the hunters,” lifelong Bladenboro resident Kent Packer says in the film.

They wanted to be the ones to bring it down. Only residents knew they too, like the animals, were at risk.

The film shares several theories — that the beast was seen but wasn’t alone; that it had a mate and possibly offspring; and the retellings include descriptions of its size and characteristics, such as lengthy claws.

The documentary uses images from today to help tell the story from long ago, weaving its way through a week of reports surfacing and being probed. There is mood music and real screams over scenes of abandoned houses that raise the viewer’s pulse rate.

In addition to Weatherly’s narration and Lewis’ direction, there is excellent animation by Ed Manrique. Nick Sedotto and Sean Austin are associate producers.

With the story seven days old, including five of somewhat panic in Bladenboro, Weatherly in narration says, “The Bladenboro community was now tense and excited. And things were about to get a lot more chaotic.”

That’s because word was now going beyond the county’s borders and its local newspapers and radio outlets. There was no internet or cellphones then, and television was less than a quarter-century old.

The Associated Press reports sent the news around the country, and TV stations from up the Atlantic Seaboard soon found their way into Bladen County. The town with a population of about 800 had an estimated 1,000 hunters join them. Their motivations, including for college fraternity boys, were many.

“To my knowledge, they never did actually get what was confirmed to be it,” former Mayor Rufus Duckworth says in the film from a spot in Bladenboro Hardware. “It really stirred up a little town back in the ’50s. Small town of Bladenboro got people from Florida to New York showing up to hunt something, then it’s pretty big news.”

In the interest of safety due to so many people carrying guns and looking to shoot in an instant, the mayor then, W.G. “Bob” Fussell, and Bladenboro’s chief of police took action on Jan. 9, 1954. They said unless the beast struck again, or was seen, the hunt was off and Fussell asked the hunters to leave.

Not all did. Nor apparently did the beast.

And Luther Davis’ capture of a bobcat on Jan. 13 also didn’t put the story to rest, despite the best media relations efforts of the day.

More animal attacks came, including near Lumberton.

But eventually, the attacks did wane off, as did interest. And for the small town that otherwise would seek attention, there was something good in that.

The film asks questions that, it says, were not asked back in the day. At least they didn’t seem to be asked and answered in the published reports. And the documentary even questions the actions of Fussell.

“There are just enough pieces of this legend that make it outside the bounds of the norm,” Weatherly says. “There are aspects of this case that we will never really solve.”

The documentary is available exclusively through ScareNetwork.TV beginning Thursday night at 7 p.m. Viewers can buy it for $3.99, or rent it for $1.99, or subscribe to the platform for $4.99 a month.