Sasquatch Hunters

SEPTEMBER 5, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, MONSTER
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Sweet merciful Christ, who in the name of Zeus’ butthole puts the money up for shit like Sasquatch Hunters? Are they blind? Retarded? Jerks? All of the above??? Like I’ve said before, there is NOTHING wrong with making a movie when the primary goal is to make some green. That’s all Halloween was, but the difference is they made an excellent film at the same time (and so help you Jebus if you think “which version?”). It was original, it was technically incredible, and the cast was made up of actual actors.

You can’t say any of that about this goddamn thing though. Other than besting the woeful Trigger Man by also having three redneck-ish hunters, only giving them more dialogue and character development in 3 minutes than Ti West provided his characters with in the film’s entirety, there is absolutely nothing nice I can say about this movie.

Oh wait I take that back – the score, which is ridiculously inappropriate and quite obviously recycled from something else, is quite nice, sounding like a decent enough (and random enough to appreciate) cross between Jurassic Park and Meet Joe Black. There. And they killed off the most sympathetic character like halfway through. That’s all I will give you, movie.

For starters, the title doesn’t even make sense. The folks are not hunting sasquatches, they are simply wandering aimlessly around the woods looking for artifacts. Or maybe it means that the sasquatches themselves are the hunters? Well it doesn’t matter, because there are no sasquatches in the film, only animatics of a gorilla whose size changes from scene to scene.

I say animatics because there is no way in hell that these are supposed to be finished effects. I literally laughed out loud every single time they showed the goofy thing "running" around the forest in money-saving closeup. See, there’s a big difference between bad CG and a costume where you can see the zipper. With the zipper, there’s a sort of charm to the cheapness of it. And at least it shows they were sort of trying. But bad CG carries no such benefit. Bad CG (especially in a film where an occasional genuine monster suit is utilized) just screams of laziness and, well, dickishness. It doesn’t take much effort to at least composite your goofy CG gorilla with the background properly. The fucking cartoon robot I made for my still unfinished short film looked more realistic, and I didn’t have the benefit of money, investors, etc.

The acting is also abysmal from start to finish. Most annoying – the actors swear a lot, and yet they ALL manage to sound like a 4 year old saying ‘shit’ for the first time. It’s almost surreal that even after saying it 30 times, an actor can’t make a line like “We have to get the fuck out of here!” sound convincing. Since all of the kills are off screen (and the film has many TV movie style fade outs), you gotta wonder why they didn’t just tell the actors NOT to swear, since they don’t even know how, and make the film a PG thing for kids or Fox Family Channel viewers to enjoy. It would at least be less insulting.

The story of how I came to learn about this monstrosity is vastly more entertaining than the film itself. In line one day at Blockbuster, I began to chat with another patron who noticed I had Grudge 2 in my hand. “That movie stinks,” he told me. I explained that I enjoyed watching bad horror movies. He then said “Oh, I got one for you then. It’s about a Bigfoot, only there’s a bunch of them…” As he droned on, I began to suspect he was referring to Abominable, a film I not only enjoyed but was directed by a buddy of mine. As I was about to strike him (or, more likely, insult his stupid bald head) he said “I think it was called Sasquatch Hunters.” Crisis adverted; I queued the film the next day (and consider how long ago it was I watched Grudge 2, which should give you an idea of how long my queue is).

OK, maybe it wasn’t more entertaining than the film. But the point is, Abominable is a pretty good movie. And Grudge 2 was at least entertaining. This movie is a flaming pile of shit.

And once again, my movie for the day was non-anamorphic, just adding insult to fuckfacery.

What say you?