True Terror with Robert Englund - Season 1, Episode 4: “Legends and Lore” TV Episode Review

The fourth episode of True Terror with Robert Englund is all about American legends and lore, those stories passed down through the generations that everyone has heard of and where there’s often a family story of some kind. Every country has their legends, and America’s colorful past and westward expansion leaves no shortage of creatures to contend with. As always, Robert Englund is here to walk you through three very different tales that range from strange to socially relevant to a good old-fashioned moral quandary delivered by a wild beast.

In the first segment, entitled “Red Ghost”, we find ourselves in Eagle Creek, Arizona, in 1893. Wade Martin (Anthony Neal) and his wife, Karen (Erin Crocker), are pioneers trying to build a life on the southern Arizona plains. When Karen is brutally gored and trampled by a mysterious beast in the dark of night, Wade is grief-stricken and hell bent on revenge. Eyewitness descriptions describe the beast as “red and black…the devil” and “as tall as two horses”. It’s terrorizing more than just Wade. While everyone is freaking out, Wade is closing in. When he and his partner, Abel Thompson (Al Underwood), finally corner the beast, they discover that perception is a darkly funny thing and truth is often stranger than fiction. This story will make you chuckle unexpectedly, and I say that as a compliment. It’s rather hideous.

The second tale, “Last Indian Zombie Slayer”, takes us just north of the border to Canada in 1907. It’s the story of a famous Cree shaman by the name of Jack Fiddler. He’s a notorious slayer of the deadly Wendigo, a Native American creature that feeds on human flesh and can assume the form of its victims. In its true form, it resembles a rabid, monstrous deer that is the stuff of nightmares. There are reports of the Wendigo or “wendigo psychosis” as far back as the mid-1600s. Fiddler was arrested by Canadian authorities for his exploits as a Wendigo hunter; they believed him to simply be an insane savage who murdered those he believed to be possessed. It’s a classic case of the beliefs of civilized man clashing with the old ways of the natives we took our land from, and it gives this segment a social relevance and deeper meaning that makes it the strongest of the episode. It’s also got some fantastic Wendigo art and animation that made me want to go and dive into a Dungeons and Dragons game. Good stuff!

The final tale of Episode 4 is “Blue Man”. Here we find ourselves in the Ozark Mountains of Missouri in the winter of 1865. A famous hunter by the name of “Blue” Sol Collins (Tucker Conley) was the first to encounter the beast, essentially an Ozark Bigfoot that hurled rocks at him and menaced him. He survived the encounter unscathed, only to show up and help a farmer decades later after his livestock start disappearing and turning up in puddles of gore. The two men eventually find what they were looking for, though The Blue Man isn’t everything they thought it would be and a moral dilemma ensues with shocking results. This is another excellent segment that makes you stop and put yourself in the hunter’s shoes.

Host Robert Englund is clearly enjoying screwing with your head in the first segment, and he lays on a little extra edge in the last two segments. “Legends and Lore” is another quality episode that does more than just make you debate the legitimacy of the stories told. You’re presented with the kind of real-life situations of America’s growing pains and the human condition which will remind you that while truth is often stranger than fiction, sometimes the truth is just plain uglier.