Sympathy for the Sasquatch
Cinematic Bigfoots Part III
 Cinematic sasquatches are surprisingly often sympathetic characters.
Corey Michael Eubanks' Bigfoot: The Unforgettable Encounter (1995) has an eleven year old lad attempting to save his sasquatch friend from bounty hunters. It succeeds in a disneyesque sort of way for viewers eleven & under.
 Bill Rebane is one of the world's worst filmmakers. His The Capture of Bigfoot aka The Legend of Bigfoot (1979) is about Arak the Bigfoot (Janus Raudkivi) whose mountain territory is encroached upon by a ski resort.
The local yokals have made sasquatches something of a regional cottage industry & don't want their resident bigfoot captured, except for one enterpreneur who'd like to put him on display, a la King Kong.
In a moronic sort of way that harks back to the "best" of Ed Wood. The Capture of Bigfoot as a no-budget affair has a certain camp appeal, which cannot be said of all Rebane films, as you may be able to tell from reviews of additional Bill Rebane films).
 Robert Vernon's made-for-tv Legend of the Desert Bigfoot (1995) is a Christian family film in the "Last Chance Detectives" series.
The sneaky use of a nice monster to teach scripture might work in households where the kids are going to be bombarded by scripture anyway, & they might as well get a gorilla with their next sermon. It's otherwise not worth the effort.
Much the same story can be had sans sermons from Jay Schlossberg-Cohen's Cry Wilderness (1987). It regards some bad guys tracking an ape-man in a California forest, not believing the young son who knows the creature is friendly. The boy goes into cleverness overdrive to keep dad & dad's buddies from harming the smily ape-man.
 Danny Huston's telefilm Bigfoot (1987) has forest campers encountering a family of sasquatches in the Pacific Northwest.
Distributed by Disney, it's a family-friendly film with the Bigfoot befriended by children. The main thing standing between the tragic capture of the nice ape-people are the kids.
 Robert F. Slatzer's earlier film of the same title Bigfoot (1970) presents another family of Sasquatches likewise living in the wilds of the Pacific Northwest.
It's not quite as kid-friendly as Huston's Disney-supported version, but it's hard to call it quite for adults either.
There's a macho male sasquatch, three female sasquatches, & a baby sasquatch, pitted against a motorcycle gang. Monster make-up is fabulously unconvincing & the whole film laughable throughout, making it a loveable film for shlock addicts.
 The Revenge of Bigfoot was imaginatively retitled Rufus J. Pickle & the Indian (1979) about a Texas bigfoot interferring with a bigot's (Mike Hackworth) desire to run an Indian (T. Dan Hopkins) off a neighbor's (Rory Calhoun) ranch.
The independent cheapy, filmed in Texas, hit the drive-in circuit, distributed mainly in the South. It's today on many a shlock-collector's want-list.
 Alan Grosland directed The Six Milliion Dollar Man: The Secret of Bigfoot (1975) which starred Andre the Giant in the titular role as a semi-heroic sasquatch who turns out not to be such a bad guy after all. This was a movie-length two-part television episode of The Six Million Dollar Man & can be had on dvd.
Regarded as the best or at least the most over the top episode of the whole series, it features not only Andre as the bigfoot wrestling with Lee Majors as the bionic man, but amps up the fantasy quotient by bringing in Stefani Powers as the bionic woman & some aliens from outer space
 The children's television series Bigfoot & Wild Boy (1977/8, 20 half-hour episodes) was about a feral boy (Joseph Butcher) raised by a sasquatch (Ray Young).
Together they roam the Pacific Northwest wilderness stomping out polution, walloping bad guys, & helping campers in distress.
Sentimentality toward sasquatches is taken to its furthest extreme in two "baby bigfoot" films, Little Bigfoot and Little Bigfoot II: The Journey Home both from 1997 & directed by Art Comancho.
These are kind of a combination of Son of Godzilla with the cutesy big-eyed baby befriending children, & ET: The Extraterrestrial with the smart boy helping the sweet creature find its way back home.
The baby bigfoot costume is a bit more convincing than Barney the Purple Dinosaur. These are children's films through & though, replete with moral lessons, slim for the adult diet but apt to be much enjoyed by the very young.
copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl
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