The Capture of Bigfoot
Year of Release: 1979
Genre: Adventure/Horror
Rated: PG
Running Time: 92 minutes (1:32)
Director: Bill Rebane
Cast:
Stafford Morgan ... Garrett
Richard Kennedy ... Olsen
George 'Buck' Flower ... Jake
Katherine Hopkins Nicholas ... Karen
Otis Young ... Jason
John F. Goff ... Burt
John Eimerman ... Jimmy
Randolph Scott ... Randy
Wally Flaherty ... Sheriff Cooper
Janus Raudkivi ... The Legendary Creature of Arak
Randolph Rebane ... Little Bigfoot
Summary:
Indian folklore calls it Sasquatch. The white man named it Big Foot...
Deep in the snow-covered backwoods it lurks. An elusive, massive beast rarely glimpsed by man, this creature of the frozen north suddenly begins a series of grisly killings.
A ski resort is terrorized by these brutal murders. The local township must find a way to stop the beast before it kills again...
Review:
Just a quick note before we dive into the flick for those of you expectin' an unbiased, factual, in-depth report on the latest news outta Chickawalka County - I have been advised by my attorney, Cletus Rubenstein, to temporarily suspend all commentary on local happenins pending the outcome of a minor misunderstandin' currently workin' its way through the court system.
Nothin' to get concerned about, it's just a six-figure defamation suit alleging felonious slander stemming from remarks made about a certain chunkhead's ability to correctly identify their ass as compared to various holes in the ground, but Cletus thinks it might be a good idea if I "keep my foot trap shut" for a while.
This is fine by me, 'cause you all know how I hate to talk about myself when I could be discussin' more important things like the unstoppable cheese epidemic comin' outta Wisconsin, so let's figure on gettin' down to the nitty gritty right outta the chute goin' forward.
The movie begins with what appears to be a team of huskies pullin' two drunks on a beer run through the frozen wastes of Wisconsin, only when they stop to camp we find out that they've kidnapped a Snuggle Soft Sasquatch and next thing ya know its mama shows up and makes head cheese outta the two cheeseheads. Yeti White's had it with these Fuddian bumpkins tryna confiscate 'er offspring and bring it up Christian so it won't end up in Hominid Hell, so she plants one of 'em on the dog sled and points it toward town to send a message to the bigots in Madison. The dogs eventually mush their way to Buck Flower's cabin where he and this guy who looks like Sean Hannity and Grandpa Munster had a baby (Olsen) take 'im to the hospital followin' his abominable treatment until Olsen gets the guy alone and just about finishes 'im off tryna find out what it was that reduced 'im to Eskimo Pie filling. 'Course the sheriff (Cooper) would like to investigate the incident except he's all tied up tryna perfect his Humphrey Bogart impression for the Plainfield Community Theater production of Casablanca, so he sends the game warden (Garrett) in his stead and Garrett orders Buck to have 'imself deloused and roused by 6 in the AM to help 'im navigate Mount Severest. The next mornin' the pair go Iditerodin' around until they find the body of a trapper who got jumped while ogling the Swiss Miss girl alongside a set of footprints the size of Lake Superior and Buck hasta explain to Garrett that there're a lotta things he'd do for a Klondike Bar but this ain't one of 'em.
Then Olsen hires Milwaukee's Best (Jason and Burt) to bring 'im whatever's been processin' all the local cowtippers into pink slime and they end up pluggin' Whitey Joe Young and makin' the Wisconsin Shredder so mad that she starts tossin' snowmobiles around like Tonka trucks until they decide they'd better get the heck outta there before they end up hangin' upside down in a cave with Luke Skywalker. Olsen is P.O.'d, so he calls in the heavy-duty 'squatch squashin' equipment and sets out to find The Legend of Foggy Peaks with his skunky flunkies until they run into Garrett and Buck and tie 'em to a tree and leave 'em to the mercy of the chillbillies. Things aren't goin' accordin' to plan at all, so Olsen takes Jason and Burt to a clearing and ties 'em up under a big net hopin' the Iceman'll cometh for revengeth and sure enough, the Gigantopissedicus goes for 'em and ends up gettin' caught in the net like a drunk at a soccer game. Meanwhile, things're startin' to look a little Donnery for Garrett and Buck until a wise old Indian shows up, cuts 'em loose, and gives Garrett a sacred talisman that his ancestors received in exchange for Massachusetts that's supposed to protect against the wrath of the Indiegogo Wendigo. Garrett realizes it's now or never and that if they don't stop Olsen he's gonna end up chainin' Honkey Kong to the goal posts at Lambeau until it inevitably breaks free and runs amok in downtown Green Bay, so Garrett sends Buck to get the sheriff while he infiltrates the Frost Dutchman Mine where Machilla Gorilla's bein' held captive. I'd better stop here before I go givin' away the ending, but if you came lookin' for gratuitous fire and ice motor vehicle mayhem on the backroads of Gleason, Wisconsin the last fifteen minutes're gonna be a real treat.
Alrighty, well, it would seem that Bill learned his lesson after runnin' outta money during the production of Monster a Go-Go, and the solution seems to be haulin' your cast out into the drifts of Northern Wisconsin where they can't escape once the production's snowed in. A lotta people like to dump on this flick, includin' guys like Lloyd Kaufman who once said that it was one of the five worst flicks that Troma ever distributed, but Lloyd and I have a fundamental disagreement about the movie industry in the sense that I prefer my absurdity to be accidental mosta the time. No offense to Lloyd, of course, 'cause Squeeze Play! and Waitress! are probably in the list of top ten flicks ever made to feature a gratuitous exclamation point at the ends of their titles. I'll concede that it was always gonna be a tough climb for Rebane to best the moment of genius he experienced in 1975 when he requisitioned a 20' spider and plopped it down atop a Volkswagen Beetle and made film history with The Giant Spider Invasion, but the idea that The Capture of Bigfoot is some kinda travesty is overblown.
I think one problem people have with it is that it's a little wishy-washy in its depiction of the monster in the sense that it's straddling the middle ground between the sappiness of Cry Wilderness and the no-nonsense, salami-severing Night of the Demon, and a certain segment of the audience would prefer the latter. I get it. I count myself among their number. Sasquatch is always better when there's a chance he'll tear the head off some hapless snow-shoer and pitch it through the plate glass window of a ski lodge so he can watch all the middle-class resort-goers panic like yuppies in a power outage. That said, any Sasquatch flick produced during the height of Bigfoot mania is alright by me, and the ones willing to brave serious winter snowfall deserve extra credit for going against the Legend of Boggy Creek archetype even if it may not please the hardcore bigfoot enthusiasts.
In any event, it's about time to make like a podiatrist and see if these big feet are gonna require amputation, so let's get to it.
The plot is pretty ridiculous once you begin to realize just how cracked the antagonist is as he's essentially willing to murder anyone who stands in the way of his capturing the creature. Certainly, there have been recent examples of people so disconnected from reality as to believe themselves immune to any sort of consequence for their actions, but Olsen straight-up murders a much-beloved character actor, tries to kill another on two separate occasions, and risks the lives of his toadies to trap his quarry - all with the end goal of putting it on display to make money and tell everyone he told 'em so. Affluenza aside, this "ends justify the means" approach is pretty hard to swallow from an observer's perspective, and serves as an egregious example of lazy screenwriting that began with a conclusion from which the writer was unable to successfully work backward. The script also suffers from inconsequential characters that serve little purpose other than to pad out a run time that didn't need it - thus bogging down the pacing and leaving the audience waiting expectantly for these characters to contribute some action or offer some exposition that never materializes. In other words - they weren't really sure how to get from Point A to Point B and end up takin' a few detours that lead nowhere.
The acting is better than one might expect from examining stills of the bigfoot suit, with the heavy lifting being contributed by B-movie stalwart Buck Flower. Buck's one of those guys who elevated every flick he was in, and Rebane had the good sense to give him a bigger role than we're accustomed to seeing from a man who was often typecast as some combination of skeevy, alcoholic, homeless, backwoods, or senile. The average theater patron would never accept him as a lead, but in low-budget flicks like this a strong supporting role is perfect, and he gives the movie an air of legitimacy it would have otherwise lacked. Additionally, Richard Kennedy gives a good performance as the over-the-top Capitalist, and I say that because whether it was a wise decision or not, it seems clear to me that he was directed to act in this manner by Rebane, who seems to demand increasingly unhinged delivery as the film progresses. The only weak performance comes from Katherine Nicholas who, in addition to being given a role that need not exist, has a strange habit of thoughtfully pausing for dramatic effect in a Shatner-esque manner that comes across as bizarre and random. Maybe she was instructed to do this, and if so, I apologize, but it pulls you right outta the scene and makes you begin to scrutinize her delivery rather than paying attention to what's being said because it's so odd. Still, no one stands out as abysmal, and that's more than can be said for many of its low-budget peers.
Here's who matters and why: Stafford Morgan (The Witch Who Came from the Sea, The Forest, The Alpha Incident), Richard Kennedy (Mortuar Academy, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, The Witch Who Came from the Sea, The Love Butcher, Fangs, Invasion of the Blood Farmers), Otis Young (The Clones, Blood Beach), John F. Goff (The Fog, They Live, Azira: Blood from the Sand, The Screaming, Ripper Man, Skeeter, Dragonfight, Grotesque, Alligator, Drive-In Massacre, The Alpha Incident, Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, The Witch Who Came From the Sea, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS), Wally Flaherty (The Game, The Demonsville Terror), William Dexter (Blood Harvest, The Demonsville Terror, The Demons of Ludlow), Harry Youstos (The Alpha Incident), Verkina Flower (Beyond Evil, Drive-In Massacre, The Witch Who Came from the Sea), Greg Gault (Virus 1995), Denise Cheshire (Men in Black II, Mighty Joe Young 1998, Graduation Day).
Oh, and here're Buck's credits: Back to the Future 1 & 2, They Live, The Fog, They Are Among Us, The Curse of the Komodo, Moonbase, Wishmaster, Bloodsuckers, Dark Breed, Village of the Damned 1995, Ripper Man, Circuitry Man II, Skeeter, Warlock: The Armageddon, Body Bags, Waxwork II, 976-EVIL II, Camp Fear, Speak of the Devil, Dragonfight, Blood Games, Puppet Master II, Dead Men Don't Die, Spontaneous Combustion, Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat, Death Nurse 2, The American Scream, Mac and Me, Bloody Pom Poms, Punkinhead, Maniac Cop, Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, Bates Motel 1987, Berserker, The Night Stalker, Starman, The Capture of Bigfoot, The Time Machine 1978, Killer's Delight, The Alpha Incident, Ilsa: Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks, The Witch Who Came From the Sea, Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS, Criminally Insane, Drive-In Massacre, Tammy and the T-Rex, Munchie, Escape from New York.
The special effects are limited to two incidents of minor bloodletting that come across with good consistency and color, an incredibly limp dummy that's among the most pitiful you'll ever see, a pretty decent two-car smash-up with explosion included for no apparent reason, and the Snuggle Soft Yeti, whose face doesn't look too bad, but whose protective covering looks to be sheepskin pilfered from the bucket seat covers of disabled pickups. There's no question that the Yeti suit is unconvincing and likely to elicit laughter, but I'm gonna pound this drum until either it or I succumb to the horrors of modern life - Rebane had the choice to keep the monster hidden to save face with current and future investors or give the audience the bigfoot it paid to see, and he chose the latter. Does its appearance hurt the film's production value? Definitely; but that score was never going to be especially high to begin with, and the film's entertainment value increases dramatically for its inclusion. The choice is yours, of course - be irritated by the lackluster effects to the point that it ruins any enjoyment you may derive from the flick, or embrace the silliness and take something positive away from the experience. Laugh or cry, make your choice.
The shooting locations save the movie from being as bad as most people claim it is, because as desperate as it may sound, the magnificent snowy scenery gives you somethin' to look at when the kids are wandering aimlessly through the woods establishing atmosphere while achieving little else. Some flicks set in winter refuse to get out in the bluster and really immerse the audience in the snowy goodness by waitin' around until March or April when the snow's already melting, but not Bill. Buck Flower, Stafford Morgan, and Richard Kennedy are out there breakin' through drifts that're up to the top of their boots in areas that're often so fresh you can tell they were from the first take due to how untouched everything around them is, and although that may not mean much to some, it shows what a small, regional film can achieve aesthetically by enduring inconvenience and hardship for the sake of their art. Like all of Bill's flicks, The Capture of Bigfoot was filmed in and around the town of Gleason, Wisconsin (population 2000, probably less in 1979), and although he never really ventures near town for any exterior sequences we get a cozy little bar, diner, and what I believe to be an actual hospital given the amount of medical equipment on display (though it kinda looks like a school at times). Say what you like about the plot, but its simplistic nature makes it far easier to gain access to the kinda authentic locations that The Giant Spider Invasion was unable to, and as a result, these locales, indoor and outdoor, give the flick a much-needed boost in the technical department.
The soundtrack, while hokey, is appropriate to the theme and setting with its liberal use of acoustic folk guitar, dreamy xylophone harmonics, synthesizers, and the occasional injection of '70s wacka-chicka just to keep things fresh. There's one piece that comes pretty close to rippin' off the theme from M*A*S*H, but everything comes together to sync up with the movie's mild approach to sasquatch mayhem - rarely becoming dark enough to frighten even the youngest of children. Rebane did take a least one cue from The Legend of Boggy Creek by incorporating an incredibly cheesy folk song for the opening and closing credits, but while it is sufficiently hippie-esque and laden with "profound if played while high" lyrics, it really can't compete with Chuck Pierce's songs from the aforementioned classic. It's all very innocuous, charming, and effective for a film of its time and setting, and features nothing that anyone is likely clamoring to purchase even in an age where vinyl is seeing a strong resurgence.
Overall, it's no Legend of Boggy Creek or Snowbeast, but is superior to many of its peers including Man Beast, The Snow Creature, and even Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot (although I don't think there's much question that the latter is superior on a technical level). Definitely worth a watch for bigfoot enthusiasts and fans of regional filmmaking no matter how bad some people would have you believe it is - those folks oughta go watch somethin' like The Terrible Giant of the Snow from 1963 to acquire a little perspective.
Rating: 46%