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Released by: Cheezy Flicks
Released on: February 21, 2012.
Director: Robert F. Slatzer
Cast: John Carradine, Christopher Mitchum, John Mitchum, Judy Jordan, Joi Lansing
Year: 1970
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The Movie:
Holy shit, look at that cover! Bigfoot has got a hot chick in bondage, there's a dude with a machine gun coming in to save the day and our favorite Sasquatch is just about to throw a FUCKING MOTORBIKE right in your FUCKING FACE. YEAH! Holy shit, this is gonna be so rad, right? Right!?
Made in 1970 by Robert F. Slatzer (presumably with the money he got returning a case of empty beer bottles), this one starts off with a gang of bikers who show up at a store in the middle of nowhere and try to steal a Styrofoam ice box. Not so fast, biker trash, that's a top quality ice box and it's gonna cost you two of your fancy American dollars. The bikers pay up, the old man who runs the place, Bennett (Ken Maynard), is satiated and off they go into the woods for reasons never really made all that clear. Once they get out into the middle of the forest, Rick (Christopher Mitchum) and his hot girlfriend Chris (Judy Jordan) decide to break away from the rest of the gang for a little quality boinking in the forest. After Rick gets his wick wet, poor Chris stumbles upon an unusually shallow Sasquatch burial ground and is promptly kidnapped by one of those very same hairy behemoths! Sasquatch! It seems our hairy friend has a thing for human chicks and whatever bigfoot ladies are left in these here woods just aren't fit for pumping out bigfoot babies the way a biker chick ought to be.
Meanwhile, a travelling salesman named Jasper B. Hawks (John Carradine) and his weird decrepit accomplice, Elmer Briggs (John Mitchum) are driving around in Hawks' station wagon, a crappy looking ride filled to the brim with all manner of fine wares, the kind Hawks hopes to hawk at the aforementioned store in the middle of nowhere. When he and Elmer find out that Bigfoot has been active in the area, Hawks smells an opportunity and so the two set out with their rifles to capture the mythical beast with the express intention of putting him on display and earning themselves a fortune in the process. They want some beer but those bikers bought it all, so no beer for Jasper and Elmer. Adding fuel to the fire is a pilot named Joi (played by Joi Lansing) experiences a serious malfunction in her plane over these very same woods - with no other choice she parachutes to the forest below and, just as she's taking off her flight gear, is promptly kidnapped by Bigfoot and his fellow Sasquatch forest dwelling rapist critters. Eventually our opportunistic salesmen team up with Rick, who just wants to get his girlfriend back before Bigfoot rapes her, and head into the woods to set things right again.
Touted as 'The Greatest Monster Since KING KONG' on the one-sheet, Bigfoot is nowhere near as awesome as its completely bad ass motorcycle chucking machine gunning poster would have you believe. Far too much of the film is taken up with scenes of John Carradine trying to sell junk to former cowboy star Ken Maynard and the film never even comes close to capitalizing on the exploitative aspects of the storyline, content to simply wallow away with its GP rating rather than show any serious skin or offer up anything outside of some bad monster suit effects.
There's plenty of entertainment value to be had here for the bad movie fan, and Carradine's scenery chewing performance (which relies entirely too much on a bad southern accent and spouting off one liners from other better known movies) is amusing enough, but let's be realistic here and recognize this one as the complete shitball of a movie that it is. The most interesting thing about the film is who pops up in it. Aside from Carradine and Maynard we get the late, great Robert Mitchum's brother AND his son and we get Bing Crosby's kid as the leader of the biker gang. Joe Lansing, who died far too young but not before assuring herself cult status looks great here, perpetually trying to stay in her skimpy bikini and Judy Jordan is equally easy on the eyes. Look out for a quick cameo from Haji as a biker gal and Doodles Weaver plays a park ranger for about a minute or so here.
The monster costumes are awful, and the highlight of the film is the deliriously odd brawl between Mitchum's Rick and the biggest of the Bigfoot characters in the movie (there are a few of varying sizes here) - sadly this scene doesn't involve anyone throwing motorcycles at one another, but before it's over Bigfoot will fight a big fat bear and John Carradine will quote Gone With The Wind.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1.33.1 fullframe transfer is cropped as indicated by the missing information on the left and right of the opening credits and tape sourced as indicated by a few tape rolls here and there and some tracking lines present on the bottom of the picture from start to finish. The first few minutes look the worst, things clean up a bit from there but obviously the transfer can't really look any better than its tape source will allow and man oh man do those dark scenes look murky, messy and just plain bad. It would have been nice to see this given a proper anamorphic widescreen release in its original aspect ratio but that didn't happen. This is watchable, but just barely and overall this generally looks like the worn out tape it was obviously sourced from.
The no frills English language Dolby Digital Mono sound mix has some mild hiss throughout and a few level jumps here and there but is serviceable. Again, it certainly could have been better, but you can at least understand all the dialogue.
There are no feature related extra features on this disc but there are a few trailers thrown on for other releases from the label as well as some intermission cartoons. Chapter stops and static menus are also included.
The Final Word:
Skimpy extras and a low grade VHS level presentation make this one tough to really recommend even if the movie itself offers up some pretty cool (if incredibly awful looking) monsters and a fun cast of B-movie veterans.
