Sasquatch, the Legend of Bigfoot (1977)

This movie, not to be confused with Ivan Marx’s the Legend of Bigfoot, is another “documentary” about the search for Bigfoot.  Only this time we are treated to a group of naturalists, Bigfoot searchers, a reporter, an Indian tracker, and a crazy old tracker as they pack up the horses and head off to the remote areas of British Columbia in search of the beast.  Along the way we are treated to a heaping helping of nature footage, lame attempts at humor, a mountain lion “attack”, and an exciting Bigfoot attack on camp when they get too close.  Could you ask for more? 

This is a very strange movie.  Let me back track.  The 70s were a golden age for Bigfoot movies.  You had everything from the documentary style Legend of Bigfoot, to the collection of stories being reenacted like Legend of Boggy Creek, to the standard narrative film like Capture of the Bigfoot.  This movie tries to be a bit of all those styles with fictional characters heading out on a mission to capture a Bigfoot, switches to all sorts of nature footage, and then does reenactments of stories being told around the campfire.  This is all tied together by my least favorite plot device and tool of the lazy scriptwriter, the annoying voiceover!  Now this should be a mess of a movie, but on some levels it does work.  I mean the movie is all over the place and makes little sense at times, but it is just so damn silly that I can’t hate on it too much.  And most importantly it makes sure that something is always happening on the screen to keep your attention, even if it is a terribly done Bigfoot attack.  The movie manages to be fun without the annoying requirements of being well made or acted.  Speaking of acting the cast consists of some of the worst actors that I’ve seen on screen.  Really wooden acting, terrible line delivery, the whole works of what not to do on a low budget movie are on display here.  But again I just can’t hate on the movie that much.

The special effects are surprisingly decent and consist of the Bigfoot makeup.  Most of the Bigfoot scenes are done POV, so we get a lot of stomping around the woods with a camera in hand.  But when the creature does appear it looks decent. Though I think this might be because they limit the creatures screen time, not allowing the audience a great look at the creature makeup effects.  But even that shows a filmmaker that had some idea what he was doing.  As far as the rest of the technical stuff goes the camera stays in focus and you can hear the terrible dialogue. 

So I’m kind of torn.  I know that this is a bad movie, but I really got a kick out of it.  So I don’t want to rate it too highly and have angry emails from people that tracked it down on my review.  In all fairness this really is at best a mediocre movie that probably just fit nicely with what I wanted to watch at the time.  But if you are looking for a good Bigfoot fix and have watched the other movies I’ve mentioned in this review then give this one a try. 

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2009 John Shatzer