Sasquatch, The Legend of Bigfoot
My DVD triple bill of Sasquatch Horror finally arrived, and with much anticipation I got to watching the film. I was sure I saw Sasquatch, The Legend Of Bigfoot as a little kiddy way back in the seventies. The name rung such a bell as did the poster, but after watching the film, I can't recall any of it bar one scene, and even then I'm not so sure. Anyway, I thought it would be fun to do a little write up on the film, to share with the Halloween Monster Party readers.
The film comes across as a documentary with its ponderous voice over and facts about the creature. It also comes across as cheaply made from the outset. The first few minutes of the film involves nothing more than stomping footsteps and lots of stock footage of woodland animals being startled by an unseen figure. But all concerns of the lack of a budget are soon cast away as the official sounding voice starts telling us all sorts of interesting facts about sightings of the Sasquatch. The famous Patterson and Gimlin footage is show and a rickety looking old computer is fed with facts about the creature. Uncannily, given these facts, it's able to produce a line drawing that looks like a still from the footage shown a moment before, and this proves, yes, proves that Bigfoot exists. See, I told you it wasn't cheap.
We then learn from Chuck Evans, the narrator that he has organized an expedition to the land of the Bigfoot, in the hope of capturing one. To aid him in this endeavor he as assembled a crack team to trek for months through the Pacific Northwest to an area that man has never set foot and it thought to be the home of the Bigfoot. Now, by this point you can be forgiven for thinking that you're watching a documentary, the opening voice over and scientific information give the impression, and the build up for the expedition looks convincing enough. They could have gotten away with the ruse, but unfortunately, the moment the expedition members are introduced, you know this has to be a badly acted fiction.
The expedition is manned by such preposterous characters that you know this is a put on. Along with the scientific crew, there's the comedy character in the clumsy red haired cook. If he wasn't enough, you're also treated to an ancient, wise mountain man, a hard bitten cynical photographer from New York and a Native American Indian tracker. The Native American fella is, well, let's put it bluntly, a white fella in a long black wig speaking clipped and hackneyed wise Indian sayings in a manner little better than sticking up you hand and going 'how'. All in all, they're a pretty motley bunch, so much bigger than life that any thoughts that this might have been a documentary are long blown.
We follow the expedition as it treks along to where the computer has told them they will find Sasquatch, and where the wise mountain man knows they live. This is the bulk of the film - trekking and wilderness calamities. They are attacked by cougar at one point, that they kill. I can't be sure they didn't actually kill it, which I hope is not the case, especially if it was just for the film. They get washed away in a river, they have comedy capers with squirrels, attacked by a bear, and they tell tales of the past when miners and trappers were attacked by big ape like creatures. After all this trekking and adventure, a couple of broken trees herald the entrance to Bigfoot's domain.
It's not all camping adventures though, we're constantly reminded of the creatures ever present danger by endless point of view shots and weird animal noises and footprints. In Bigfoot's domainthings get extra paranoid. The team hunker down for the night, setting up an elaborate system of trip wires to warn of any approaching Bigfoot. They get their tranquilizer guns at the ready, and from the early tales of Sasquatch attacks, we know these creatures can kick butt (as in throw papiermachié rocks) and the team are scared.
Before you know it, the trip wires set off the alarms, and a number of creatures attack the camp. I say creatures, you can't quite be sure. You get the odd glimpse here and there, but nothing definite. Tables get thrown about, large fake boulders are rolled through the camp, the team all miss their targets and get injured in the process. They survive the night, but decide that after all their trekking, the best thing to do is run like the wind back home. And that's exactly what they do, Sasquatchless and beaten, with nothing more than a few footprint casts and broken bones to show for their trouble.
Now me, I love these kind of cheap schlocky horror films, and there was much to enjoy in this one, especially if you like the great outdoors. I read somewhere that they used actual Sasquatch recordings for the creatures noises in it, which sounds like nonsense, unless a Sasquatch actually sounds like an air raid siren. It's all very leaden, but you get the idea the guys in the film are having fun at least. It's a shame we don't get to see more of the Sasquatch creatures, but my guess is they would have blown their budget doing so, and in a way it's nice that the creature is kept almost secret.
It's fair to say film is no oscar winner, and irredeemably a product of the seventies, but there's a lot of fun to be had along the way for us monster fans. There are a couple of other films on the disc as well to enjoy - Snowbeast is another I saw as a kid in the 1970s, but I watched it again a couple of years ago and it was dreadful... With that in mind I will have to try out Snow Creature (1954) soon. I'll let you know if it's any better.
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