The Asylum's Bigfoot Crosses Borders! A Movie Review

Director: Bruce Davison.

Writers: Brian Brinkman, Micho Rutare.

Cast: Barry Williams, Danny Bonaduce, Sherilyn Fenn, Bruce Davison, Andre Royo, and Howard Hesseman.


One of The Asylum's latest sacrificial offerings to the SyFy Network is Bigfoot. In Canada, this movie made its premiere on Space! The Imagination Station last week and viewers on both sides of the border can ask what the hell was that thing that they have found. Some may be more inclined to go hunting for the real thing.

This company is well known for poking fun at larger film properties that include mutant animals, weather anomalies and haunted mansions. Their staying power comes from the fact that if the premise is not registered or trademarked, it's fair game for it to be ridiculed.

Creative license can only go so far, and with Bigfoot, nobody owns the copyright to cryptozoology's most famous beast. Anyone can quest for the mighty beast and claim that they found evidence. The latest talk is that this creature does not exist, and anthropologists easily dismiss it since validating its existence is nigh impossible because of its reclusive nature.

If this film is any indication of any of the above reasons, the producers have broken every rule in the book. The monster decides to come out of hiding because it does not like what the people from the town of Deadwood are doing. An outdoors concert is in the works in this little town of South Dakota and the 70’s vibe from this movie's headliners is not to this beast’s liking.

Barry Williams ("The Brady Bunch") and Danny Bonaduce ("The Partridge Family") play the leads to this throwback to another era. Respectively, Simon is a tree hugger who wants to save the mighty behemoth from extinction and DJ Harley wants to tear down the forest so he can stage one huge 80’s style concert. Both of them lock horns over what is the right thing to do, and then the beast storms in like the Incredible Hulk, all hell breaks loose. Maybe his untimely visit is to reconcile civilization’s vices of forward progress of globalization with flower power.

The likelihood of that being the intent from writers Brian Brinkman and Micho Rutare is quite possible. When considering that Bigfoot seems to love tearing down machinery while scaling up Mount Rushmore, the allusion cannot be any clearer. That leads to some great laughs.

The product is throwaway schlock. To watch the boys at odds with each other is far more interesting than the moments with Bigfoot. As with many Friday/Saturday night television entertainment products, it is made for those who choose not to spend the $25 at the theatre for something that is ‘free to view.’ The DVD release on August 14th may not prove to be any better unless it is a bargain bin product.

And to criticize the poor CGI really becomes a moot point, and viewers will find that television entertainment will never evolve because of the budgets imposed upon it.

As for where the film goes, Bigfoot is a product that just scrapes at the bottom of the barrel for general "where are they now?" type of fun. Williams and Bonaduce actually do a good job at playing off of each other as rivals. Audiences familiar with their acting resume from the 70's can only laugh. Even Alice Cooper makes an appearance and he rose to popularity in the early part of that decade. Although the other appearances comes from different eras, the appearances of "WKRP in Cincinnati's" Howard Hesseman, "Twin Peak’s" Sherilyn Fenn and "Harry and the Hendersons'" Bruce Davison only show that casting choices made was most likely intentional.

All the actors take their roles seriously even though this product is easily considered camp. Now if these two leads only played brothers, maybe another passing similarity might be referenced. Maybe Bigfoot can be called Donkey Kong.

But wait! That means new territory which The Asylum has not considered. Video game movies can be fun and it was big business once. Walt Disney Animation Studios is quite mum in not saying that their coming film, Wreck-It Ralph, is a rip-off of Donkey Kong. To save the day in Bigfoot, the heroes have to climb to the top and do something that is right before everything comes tumbling down.

4 out of 10.

Bigfoot at The Asylum:

Bigfoot's Homepage on the Interwebs

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