Bigfoot: The Movie is about as much fun as you could expect to have in rural, backwoods Pennsylvania. That is to say, quite a lot – if you enjoy drinking, shooting stuff and hanging out with your best pals.
The story focuses on two best friends, Chuck (Curt Wootton), and Dale (Nate Magill), who witness the death of their friend Daryl (Bill Crawford) at the hands of Bigfoot, following a night of drunken partying. After some nay-saying from the authorities, they decide to enlist the help of their good friend Burl, the exterminator (Jared Show) in their quest to hunt down the monster.
As the story goes on, it becomes apparent that this isn’t a monster movie at all. It’s a movie about friendship, that happens to have a monster in it. Over the course of an hour and a half, there’s a lot of drinking, dancing, bar-fighting, and even a few really disjointed scenes that took me out of the experience, but succeeded in making me smile.
The entire cast is a lot of fun to watch, but it’s really Burl, who is played by the film’s co-writer and director, Jared Show, who steals the show (pun intended). He’s a lovable, smarter-than-most, hillbilly hunter, with a glorious rat-tail, and more than enough confidence to wear it. Many of the best scenes in the movie feature Burl, and his unique perspective on how to handle complex situations. He quickly becomes the leader of the trio, and although co-star and co-writer Curt Wootton often gets the best one-liners and quips, Burl remained my favorite until the end.
Throughout much of the movie, Bigfoot is simply used as a plot device to keep the story moving, and to encourage the guys to get together and have goofy, drunken fun. The costume looks outstanding, and towards the end of the movie, when the monster begins acting monstrous, it’s downright gruesome looking. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see that side of it throughout. Many of the deaths leading up to that final encounter are off-camera, and all we see are strewn about body parts, or the occasional blood splatter as someone is ripped apart.
Overall, I found this film to be bold in a few places, slow in a few places, but mostly it was a lot of fun.
