AnythingHorror Central

Bigfoot (2012)

Posted by anythinghorror on June 26, 2012 · 1 Comment 

With the premier of SyFy’s BIGFOOT comes an end to “The Most Dangerous Month on TV.”  I don’t know about ‘dangerous,’ but I’ve had an overall pretty good time with the four premiers.  JERSEY SHORE SHARK ATTACK (my review) kicked off the month followed by PIRANHACONDA (my review), the weakest of the bunch, and then ARACHNOQUAKE (my review), the strongest of the bunch.  And now this Saturday, June 30^th at 9pm ET/PT comes BIGFOOT.  Do we go out on a high note?

BIGFOOT takes the popular big guy and puts him in Deadwood, South Dakota where he’s been living in the cave systems (apparently) for decades.  But Bigfoot is also an environmentalist and when humans start messing with his domain, the big guy gets a little pissed off.  Writers Brian Brinkman and Micho Rutare, who teamed up on 2010’s METEOR APOCALYPSE, get together again to give us a script full of pop icons, a CG Bigfoot, and a conflict between two previous best friends who now find themselves fighting each other over the titular character.  In the one corner you have ex-PARTRIDGE FAMILY member Danny Bonaduce, the DJ at a small, local radio station in Deadwood who’s trying to organize a huge 1980’s music festival.  He envisions a kind of modern-day Woodstock and has been clearing out a national park of its pesky trees, local fauna, and other annoying wildlife.

Barry Williams, Danny Bonaduce, & the big guy himself!!

In the other corner is ex-BRADY BUNCH member Barry Williams (he was Greg Brady), who used to be a singer-songwriter managed by Bonaduce until they had a falling out.  Williams is now a diehard environmentalist who doesn’t much care for the raping and damaging of the earth for someone’s greedy goals.  Williams and Bonaduce are at odds and openly hate each other (there’s also the implied indiscretion of Bonaduce banging Williams’ mom).  Not since the pop star diva match up of Tiffany and Debbie Gibson in last year’s MEGA PYTHON VS. GATOROID has the tension been so thick that you could see it!!  Okay; maybe that’s a slight exaggeration.  But Williams does everything he can to try and stop Bonaduce from ruining the land for his 80’s festival.  Other pop icons in BIGFOOT include Howard Hesseman (HEAD OF THE CLASS), Sherilyn Fenn (TWIN PEAKS), Alice Cooper (as himself), Billy Idol, and Andre Royo (THE WIRE).

Sherilyn Fenn & Howard Hesseman round out the cast.

The day of the festival arrives and though we were told this was gonna be the town’s biggest event … E V E R, with the Mayor (Hesseman) predicting around 5,000 people, only about 50-75 people actually show up.  The concert has a rough start and only after Alice Cooper takes the stage does the party get started.  But between acts there’s a bit of reverb from the speakers and this just sets Bigfoot right off.  He rampages the concert making meatloaf and mashed potatoes of all the attendees, and even turns Cooper into a 900 yard punt!!  But now it’s on.  Bigfoot has tipped his hand and the world is now aware he exists.  So naturally every hick with a camera and a gun attempts to hunt down the hulking beast.  I will give BIGFOOT credit where credit is due … the body count here is huge as Bigfoot stomps, chews, smashes, and kicks his way through most of the wilderness and state.  Yes, Bigfoot is a 100% CGI creation, and yes he doesn’t always fit so nicely in the scenery around him, but come on its Bigfoot!!  He’s huge and full of dense muscles that bullets can’t penetrate and always seems to be angry … really angry, all the time!!

This chick is seconds away from having a really bad day!!

Since the music festival was a bust (to say the least), Bonaduce and Williams find themselves on opposite ends of the “Bigfoot issue.”  Bonaduce wants to either capture or kill the beast and exploit it as a tourist trap to get money outta people, and Williams wants to sedate it and place it in a nature preserve because it has every right to live like any other living thing.  So one thing is clear; the Brady’s and the Partridge’s did a lot of drugs back in the day!!  There’s no way in hell you gonna either sedate or capture this beast.  Bigfoot here seems more like the rampaging Hulk than it does the legendary creature.  But that’s okay with me because Bigfoot causes some major damage.  It seems there was an unusual heat wave that came through South Dakota, waking Bigfoot out of it’s hibernation.  Now he needs to load up on more food in order to get back to sleep for the winter.  It’s also apparent that Bigfoot is on the Atkin’s-high protein diet from the fistfuls of humans it eats!!

Uummm, yeah … I don’t really think that’s the way to hold a gun, Greg!!

Again, nothing here is meant to be taken seriously.  Bigfoot resembles a huge ape-like creature (very ape-ish) and is just so pissed off all the time… we’re talking some major anger issues.  But the cast looks like they were genuinely having a fun time making this one and that attitude was infectious.  BIGFOOT is silly and goofy, but it’s also a lot of fun.  There are times, though, when Bigfoot seems as large as a three-story house and others when it seems as big as a bus.  It was pretty inconsistent.  But the film’s climax ends at Mount Rushmore and rivals that of Hitchcock’s NORTH BY NORTHWEST (okay; maybe not) …  but the historical attraction does get destroyed!!

In the day and age of hybrid monsters like “sharktopus” and “piranhaconda,” it’s nice to go old-school and dig up an old fossil like Bigfoot.  Sure the CG is a little more than distracting, but the overall movie has a really fun energy and all the characters are really likable – in that you like them to be wiped out by Bigfoot!!  BIGFOOT is another fun “buddies and beer” flick.  Check it out.

BIGFOOT premiers on Saturday, June 30^th at 9pm, ET/PT on where else but the SyFy channel.

My Summary:

Director:  Bruce Davison

Plot:  3 out of 5 stars

Gore:  2.5 out of 10 skulls

Zombie Mayhem:  0 out of 5 brains

Reviewed by Scott Shoyer