Bigfoot Special, part two

THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTERS A.K.A.

(BIGFOOT: THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTER)

Ah yes, another documentary from Sunn Schick Classics. This kind of fake documentary about non-existent stuff really seemed to thrive in the seventies. Good times. Anyway, things get underway with the awesome and completely believable Peter Graves ( from THE BEGINNING OF THE END and TV's MISSION IMPOSSIBLE as well as The University of Minnesota). If you can't trust Peter Graves than who can you trust? So Pete tells us all the usual crap so we'll buy into it, like scientists from all over the world worked on this movie, experts in this, that and the other thing and so on. So Bigfoot exists clearly because after all the coelacanth was thought to be extinct. Yes friends, about fourteen minutes in we get the coelacanth story which seems to be applicable to any pseudoscience from spoon bending to chiropractic. Another old buddy, the Loch Ness Monster, also makes an appearance to lend some credibility with his wonderful role in the Dinsdale film. The bulk of the flick is testimonials from various "law abiding, reliable people" about running into Bigfoots. These are actually pretty cool as they usually have dramatic reenactments with guys in suits that really look better than the ones in the various dramatic films of the seventies. There's a bunch of time spent on footprints as usual, but the kind of footprints that only giant anthropoids could make. Peter asks all the right questions and even comes up with the theory that "science might not know how to process oral information" when a skeptic dismisses the eyewitness accounts.

Basically the proof presented is eyewitness accounts, footprints, a voice recording made by hunters who happened to bring a reel to reel tape recorder with them and the fact that Teddy Roosevelt believed in Bigfoot. But what makes this flick a blast is Peter Graves. Sometimes he is outside, sometimes in a lab with test tubes, hell, he even looks through a microscope at one point. There's a million different fake appeals to authority like the US Army's alleged interest in Bigfoot as well as the F.B.I. but my favorite is when Peter takes a plaster footprint to famous fake psychic detective Peter Hurkos. It's fucking great. As they sit at a table with a zebra rug on the wall, Hurkos takes a closed briefcase with the cast inside and begins spouting horseshit about "it's about five hundred pounds, lives in cave, lives in cave, eats animals and green stuff..." What's really great to me is that Hurkos allegedly knew nothing of Bigfoot or even why Peter Graves was coming to his house. He did it all through a closed briefcase! He even draws a picture that looks more like a hippy. Peter Graves seems to become more convinced by all the "psychic and physical evidence". Eventually we do get a reenactment where BF sticks his hand through a window to attempt a grope, which seems to be a favorite move and is always good for a scare. Especially convincing is when an actor passes a polygraph but sadly at no time is there a line up of suspected Bigfoots where a traumatized girl is asked to identify the Sasquatch that touched her. The evidence keeps building with the fool proof science of hypnosis as a woman is regressed back to the time she saw a bigfoot. I'm pretty fucking convinced by this point. But wait, the Patterson film is last and now it has sound for some reason. They added the sound of startled horses to scare it up some. But Peter closes it out but saying that the vanishing wilderness will soon draw out Bigfoot and there will be no more skeptics. I assume because Bigfoot will be doing a lot of your yard work, possibly even working in construction, maybe even roofing. This flick is just great, it almost feels like it's 1974 and you've just seen the coolest educational film ever as you sit in your fourth grade class. Really good stuff. I wish all of these Sunn flicks would get legit releases. For The record, Bigfoot is an alien robot though.

THE CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE

In the wasteland of seventies Bigfoot movies, THE CREATURE FROM BLACK LAKE stands out as one of the better flicks. Judging from imdb comments, TCFBL has a loyal fanbase composed of people who like myself saw it as kids. But before we go sucking off THE CREATURE let's remember it doesn't have to be much to be one of the better bigfoot pictures. THE CURSE OF BIGFOOT and BIGFOOT didn't exactly set the bar high. Inevitably when discussing Bigfoot seventies flicks someone says, "it scared the crap outta me when the hairy arm reached through the window" which also inevitably is actually from THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK. But who cares? The story goes like this. Two university students, Rives and Pahoo, head down to the wonderful state of opportunity that is Louisiana to look for a "bi-pedal creature" that has been haunting the swamps. Rives has definite Lorenzo Lamas tendencies while Pahoo is an odd looking Viet Nam vet. There's the usual clash with the local good old boy sheriff and the various townsfolk who don't seem to trust Yankees. Jack Elam plays a drunk swamp man who lost a buddy to the creature in the past. The creature pulled a Man-Thing ( that's for you F.O.O.M. Members) and yanked the guy under water as he fished in a boat. So now Elam's a drunk who rambles on about the monster. As per the formula we get a flashback story from a guy named Orville about when his family had a flat tire and the creature ( complete with slasher p.o.v. Camera shots) stops to help. Actually he scares the family into having a fatal car wreck that killed Orville's parents. Sadly, our "Yankee Boys" insult Orville's family during a chicken dinner by bringing up the incident and upsetting Granma, thus earning themselves a night sleeping in the barn. But not before another flashback scene where Orville's Granpappy describes the time he saw and heard the creature in his barn . It sounded like "a cat caught by a red boned hound". Granpa also says "he caught a catfish that weighed a hundred pounds and he took it home where it learned to read and write", so you can see where he's coming from.

Somehow the Yankee Boys almost get laid by the sheriff's daughter and her friend but this tragically results in a trip to the pokey where Jack Elam is sleeping, Otis style. They get out and head on down to the swamp for the climax. After a bizarre exchange where Pahoo gets touchy about the similarities between Nam and hunting bigfoots, things get scary. Actually, I don't remember anyone ever saying Bigfoot in the movie, just "creature". I reckon this creature is similar to the Foulke Monster of Boggy Creek but different enough legally. Director Joy Houck Jr., whose dad owned the Joy's Theatre chains of Louisiana, manages some good PG scares when the Creature goes apeshit on the boys. It's what I remembered and would guess others as well. There's one nice surprise I didn't see coming. This is a thoroughly likeable drive in flick, really a prefect example of a low budget regional creature feature made for most of the family. Elam is great, as is Dub Taylor as Granpa and the Yankee Boys do a good job too. It really couldn't be anymore of a nice, nostalgic 1976 Lousiana picture and closes with a country song 'Exits and Truckstops" that pretty much sums up the mood. Strangely, this is more a feel good review than I thought but god damn it, I like this simple little picture. Still, I feel like I should say something about titties or something. Oh well.