Top 10 Bigfoot Movies of the 21st Century
Josh Millican
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Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie (2008)
The next film on the list is also a documentary, but as the title suggests, this is not your “typical” Bigfoot movie. The film follows Dallas Gilbert and Wayne Burton, two retired men from Appalachian Ohio who fancy themselves professional Bigfoot investigators. The film documents the expeditions and sometime -rocky friendship between these men as they seek validation from their idol: “famous” Sasquatch researcher C. Thomas Biscardi (who comes off like a total asshole). While there’s definitely a comic element to the way the men are portrayed (specifically their inflated senses of self-importance), Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie is ultimately a poignant examination of human nature, where the search for Sasquatch parallels the search for meaning in a cold and complicated world.
The Wild Man of the Navidad (2008)
I know some Bigfoot fans out there are grumbling about all these recent films, feeling in your hearts that this type of horror movie peaked in the 1970’s and that films like The Legend of Boggy Creek best exemplify this subgenre. Well, the filmmakers behind The Wild Man of the Navidad had you guys in mind when they produced this retro gem that’s almost indistinguishable from Bigfoot B-Movies of that Golden Age. The story is supposedly culled from the real-life journals of Dale S. Rogers, who in the 1970’s lived on the banks of the Navidad River in Sublime, Texas. While it’s never touched on in the film, the original legend of “The Wild Man” dates back to the 1800’s; it’s now widely believed that the “creature” was an escaped slave.
Valley of the Sasquatch (2015)
Look for Valley of the Sasquatch on VOD and DVD this fall courtesy of The October People (the folks who brought us Found) and Votive Films. It’s currently screening at festivals where it’s been kicking ass and taking names. This time Bigfoot gets a more serious, almost dignified portrayal in a film that focuses on a pack of creatures (as opposed to a lone giant). It creates a family dynamic that serves as a parallel and a foil to the dysfunctional family of humans, posing the question: Who are the real monsters? Sure, there’s some cheese, but it’s the absolute best variety, like dismembered limbs and heads getting squished like grapes! Indie favorites Bill Oberst, Jr., and Jason Vail bring genuine emotion and drama to VotS, something you almost never see in this kind of movie. (And, hey, it’s an Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies reunion!)
SIDEBAR: The remaining films are all in the found footage subgenre, and this is hardly a coincidence. By the mid 2000’s, the found footage craze was in full effect, but there’s something very apropos about using this presentation for Bigfoot movies specifically. It all harkens back to the Patterson-Gimlin film of 1967 showing a creature resembling Sasquatch sauntering across a riverbank in Bluff Creek, California. The picture is shaky and out of focus as Roger Patterson ran to catch up to the creature, and we only get a clear image for a few fleeting instances. It’s these imperfections that prove (according to some) that the encounter was unplanned and hastily recorded—and thus true. It’s the aesthetic employed in countless found footage films, where recordings are made during tumultuous, often terrifying encounters with all manner of otherworldly beasties.
Pursuit of a Legend (2010)
Pursuit of a Legend is a bare-bones found footage horror movie of The Blair Witch Project variety. A couple of aspiring television cryptozoologists decide to film a pilot in the Widjigo Woods of Washington State, where they hope to encounter a “Gentle Giant.” What they get is—well, it’s a horror movie, so I’m sure you see where this is going. Special effects are relatively nonexistent with hardly even a flash of the creature, but this film stands out thanks to the stellar lead performances: Steffen Dziczek and Chris Cantelmi act the fuck out of this movie! The viewers might not see Bigfoot, but we never doubt that the characters do, as we experience first their excitement and later—their abject horror.
