Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

The month of June, which the SyFy channel has termed the ‘Most Dangerous Month on Television’ has mercifully come to an end.  Four originals in four consecutive weeks.  While none of these originals were particularly horrible… relatively speaking of course… there was a reason that SyFy stuck this joint from our friends at The Asylum, ‘Bigfoot’, in the cleanup spot and this is because ‘Bigfoot’ was funny!  Bigfoot needs to go on the road with his comedy act because this was one CGI monster that knew how to tell a joke by stomping stupid people in the dirt. 

Some hunter shoots a bear in Deadwood South Dakota.  Bigfoot don’t like that so Bigfoot stomps this dude into the dirt.  Get used to seeing that.  You see, Bigfoot is completely down for the environment, at least for a little while.   Jump ahead a bit to rock D.J. Harley Henderson (Danny Bonaduce) trying to clear out some forest for this blazing hot 80’s popapalooza that’s going to have Duran Duran, Depeche Mode, Sting and the Police, Prince, Tears for Fears, Johnny Hates Jazz… you name it, these legends and more will be in South Dakota in the dead of winter on a five foot outdoor stage singing their biggest hits.  Thing is Harley’s old nemesis and former band mate Simon Quinn (Barry Williams) and his tree hugging psychos won’t let them cut the trees down and have chained themselves to the heavy equipment.   After all of this gets sorted out by cops Sue (Sherilynn Fenn), Old Man Walt (Bruce Davison) and the Mayor (Howard Hessmen), Simon is carted off to the hoosegow followed by Bigfoot making an unscheduled appearance to stomp, chomp and dropkick a few construction workers, which was really funny. 

Clearly it’s time to cancel the concert… as if.  Plus Harley and Simon have come to the agreement to allow Simon to sing a song at the concert where at least fifteen people have shown up.  Now if you don’t want to watch this movie, I understand, but you will miss out on arguably the worst song ever made when Barry Williams grabs the acoustic and sings his ‘Save the Bees’ song.  Good Lord that was horrible.  Thank GOD Bigfoot

showed up to stomp and chomp and dropkick Alice Cooper… who didn’t really do anything worth getting killed over… but this is the moment in the film when Bigfoot stopped being an environmental activist and just turned into kind of a giant murderous dick. 

Now Bigfoot is just indiscriminately biting the heads off of boaters, campers, families in RV’s, people walking down the street minding their own business, Mt. Rushmore tour guides… it really didn’t matter because if you were in Bigfoot’s purview, your were either getting stomped or ripped in two.  Regardless, Harley and Simon are still at odds with each other, Harley wanting to capture or kill Bigfoot and turn it into a tourist attraction, and Simon wanting to tranq Bigfoot and take it to an animal reserve.  Both ideas are really dumb, but whatever they do they have to get it done before the Army blows Bigfoot to smithereens.  A battle royale on top of Mt. Rushmore between a pair of seventies child stars well past their prime shall ensue. 

If someone wanted to be all persnickety and stuff and point out the problems with ‘Bigfoot’, directed by Bruce Davison who I believe is making his feature film directing debut at the tender age of sixty-five, we understand that.  If you wanted to single out that Bigfoot was just a little bigger than a regular dude in one shot, followed by another shot where he was a good forty feet tall, we understand that.  Or that people in Deadwood South Dakota don’t bleed no matter how violent one tears the heads from their bodies.  Or that Bigfoot, who caused the earth to shake with every step, still had the uncanny ability to sneak up on folks… that might be a problem for some.  But it is Bigfoot’s insanely unwarranted tendency towards violence, combined with this awesome stupidity, which made this movie a near instant classic.  Every time I saw Bigfoot stomp and grind somebody in the dirt, it only got funnier with each kill.  Bigfoot also only ran fast enough to catch you.  Meaning if you were on foot running 2 MPH, he’d eventually catch you running 3 MPH.  Or if you are in a high speed motor vehicle driving 70 MPH, he will eventually catch you running 75 MPH.  About the high speed car chase, one of the best scenes in this movie was when Biggs was chasing Sue and Walt and gaining fast when Sue pulled over because ‘I know how to slow him down’.  So these two loons jump out of the car, Sue lights a flare, sets some gas on fire and it did slow down Biggs because now he didn’t have to chase them anymore.  That was good looking out Sue.  This is bit of a spoiler, even though Walt did tell us he was about to retire which meant he was going to die anyway, but the way he killed Old Man Walt might’ve been the funniest kill in the whole movie.  Don’t know why he didn’t bend over and rip Sue in two next, especially since Sue essentially got Walt murdered.  This movie also had a Black Guy (Andre Royo) play the Great White Hunter.  You can’t beat that with a stick.  His exit from the movie was probably the second funniest kill. 

One thing that is certain is that ‘Bigfoot’ did have one of the better casts for an Asylum / SyFy original, Bigfoot’s stomping mayhem did keep the movie on a steady pace and all in all I had fun with this one.  I’m sure Bruce Davison probably envisioned his directorial debut being something like ‘Taming of the Shrew’ or ‘Richard III’, but I’m thinking this was way more prestigious.  If you were to ask me. 

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