chiller blog

Posted Aug 17, 09 01:47 PM

Sass Quashed

Growing up, my family took one big trip together: A station wagon sweep from North Dakota through the Pacific Northwest. My rectangular Kodak - with a "110" film cartridge - shutter-ed the Black Hills, Yellowstone and Devil's Tower.

("Devil's...?")

You know. That THING at the end of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

("OoooOOOOooooh...")

Being the fourth of four, I sat in the deck, keeping company with the Coleman coolers and Samsonites. There were advantages. First, you didn't have to cup your hands over your ears so hard when dad blared his Sunday afternoon polka station.

Actually, that was multiple-advantage worthy, so I'll go straight to "finally."

Finally, I got the rear view of the passing Rockies and Sierra Whatevers. I was determined to be predestined to be special. Somewhere within those boulders and pines, I was going to steal a glimpse of Bigfoot.

That 1967 Patterson-Gimlin footage was the "on" switch for me. You had to have seen it: The grainy, fleeting frames of what appears to be a man-like creature with a pronounced forehead and covered in ape hair ambling through fallen timbers. Science eyes were skeptical of the walk. Even hunched over, the creature moved like a human...especially one in a costume. Others contended that when the image was magnified, and the creature turned, muscle tone was revealed - had it been someone in a suit, the material would have creased. But whether or not it was a hoax doesn't register with a child's imagination. It only registers.

Of course, back then, the Bigfoot pillows were as readily available as archival photos of Bigfoot plaster casts (give or take a toe or three). Yet I always wondered how - if such a missing link existed - trackers only seemed to produce one, maybe two prints at best. Reports usually put the creature between seven to ten feet. Pound for square inch, shouldn't it have left a trail all the way back to its digs? Then there are rumors of the Himalayan cousin, the Yeti, who may have crossed over on the Bering Land Bridge. Tantalizing...until zoo-logic shoots holes into the theory with annoying stats like necessary food supply and reproduction patterns.

But mythology's gas tank gets unbelievable mileage out of freaky stories. My favorite involved the trappers, circa 1924, who spent the night in a cabin deep in the encharted wilderness. Cue darkness...unsteady footsteps outside...and the men whispering amongst themselves, "Wake up! Did you hear something?" The cabin suddenly was besieged by outside forces. The walls shook violently, and distinctly inhuman howling and chest-pounding ensued. For what must have felt like an eternity, huge rocks bombarded the dwelling and then...silence. Sort of like the silent era version of a scene from The Blair Witch Project.

But starting in the late 1950s, reports of sightings seemed to reach far beyond migration patterns any Bering Land Bridge could provide. Witness claims surfaced around the Great Lakes and down into Georgia. In 1972, the faux cheapie documentary The Legend of Boggy Creek capitalized on the national sensation, creating its own bayou Bigfoot stalking the rural swamplands of the deep South. Two even cheaper sequels followed, including one that was disowned, and another that is currently ranked #56 on the Internet Movie Database’s Bottom 100 all-time films.

For what it's worth, when Boggy Creek isn't boring us with endless marsh shots of light-choked birch trees set to endless narrative where-is-it's, there is a lightning strike of inspired chills. Envision amateur actors in their trailer home late at night, watching TV. The nearest neighbor is miles away, and the faint living room lights grow dim against the sound of crickets. A woman sits on the couch, the pitch-black and un-curtained picture window immediately behind her. From left field, a hairy arm - unprovoked - smashes through the glass. Scared the hell out of me then, scares the hell out of me now...

So why haven't filmmakers magnified that one scene and properly exploited the legend? John Carradine - at about the time he was making Vampire Hookers - starred in Bigfoot, a God-awful B-movie actually advertised with the tagline, "Breeds with anything!" Sasquatch (1977) was D.O.A. from the get-go, another fake documentary about an expedition into the mountains to bring back The Big One. G-rated folksy narration and a case of the cutes agonizingly add up to An Incredible Waste of Time.

No offense to Harry and the Hendersons, but I want a Bigfoot that's not afraid to make audiences afraid. Come on, already. Prosthetics have caught up with technology; this isn't 1976’s rubber-suited King Kong wrestling a rubber snake. Either play the legend straight or straighten out the legend.

Call me biased, but you get more than an inkling of that - surprise - in a real graphic novel find: Christian Beranek’s/Zenescope Entertainment’s Willow Creek.