To say we live in interesting times is the understatement of the millennium, as the news cycle has turned so wacky lately, it’s getting harder to tell whether the latest trending story is real or a satire from The Onion.
Having said that, I never thought that in 2023 we would see an indie comedy movie about one of my favorite cryptids —Bigfoot— which would be totally devoid of dialog, with one of the furry creatures being interpreted by an actual descendant of Elvis Presley… and yet here we are.
Watching the trailer, which was released today, it is clear Sasquatch Sunset has no intention whatsoever to follow in the footsteps of Harry & The Hendersons, the endearing family comedy of the 80’s starring John Lithgow which I watched when I was a kid. Sasquatch Sunset has a family all right… but no parent should submit their kid to a full-on session of Bigfoot doggystyle sex.
In light of the early reviews of the movie, it is evident most adult viewers are not fully prepared for the weirdness of this movie, either. The Atlantic’s movie review deemed it “an endurance” test for the audience, as the constant imagery of the Sasquatch family farting, defecating and fornicating seem to take the merits of escatológica humor to a breaking point.
Don’t take me wrong, I am certainly no prude when it comes to my movie tastes. I remember enjoying the movie Quest for Fire (1981) —which I probably was too young to watch— that also attempted to break ground by portraying a group of Neanderthal hunters (on a quest to seek fire for their tribe, hence the name) as realistically as possible, given our scientific knowledge of the time —now we know our European cousins were much more intelligent and sophisticated. There were also plenty of ‘primitive sex scenes’ in that movie, and lots of comedic moments mixed with action scenes and decent makeup effects (If you haven’t seen this one I highly recommend it, especially if you’re a Ron Perlman fan since this was his first big role in cinema).
My trepidation with Sasquatch Sunset is that I don’t know whether it seeks to celebrate the mythology of America’s most popular ‘monster’, or exploit it for the sake of Hollywood celebrities seeking to make an edgy art-house film that is supposedly attempting to portray the interactions of a Sasquatch family group.
Speaking of which, it should be noted that the earliest record of someone claiming to have closely interacted with an actual family group of these purportedly undiscovered large primates was given by Albert Ostman, a Canadian logger who in 1957 was interviewed by Bigfoot hunter René Dahinden and told the story of having been abducted and held captive by a family of these creatures during a prospecting trip in 1924.
Despite claiming to have spent six days with the Sasquatch—who never harmed Ostman, but neither let him walk away until he devised a way to escape using the snuff box which had attracted so much attention from the big male who had captured him, and a younger one which was presumably an offspring— the retired logger never provided a lot of information with respects to the daily habits of these beings; though truth be told, the detailed physical descriptions of the creatures he gave to the researchers who interviewed him gave credence to his testimony.
The young fellow might have been between 11-18 years old and about seven feet tall and might weight about 300 lbs. His chest would be 50-55 inches, his waist about 36-38 inches. He had wide jaws, narrow forehead, that slanted upward round at the back about four or five inches higher than the forehead. The hair on their heads was about six inches long. The hair on the rest of their body was short and thick in places. The women’s hair on the forehead had an upward turn like some women have — they call it bangs, among women’s hair-do’s. Nowadays the old lady could have been anything between 40-70 years old. She was over seven feet tall. She would be about 500-600 pounds.
She had very wide hips, and a goose-like walk. She was not built for beauty or speed. Some of those lovable brassieres and uplifts would have been a great improvement on her looks and her figure. The man’s eyeteeth were longer than the rest of the teeth, but not long enough to be called tusks. The old man must have been near eight feet tall. Big barrel chest and big hump on his back — powerful shoulders, his biceps on upper arm were enormous and tapered down to his elbows. His forearms were longer than common people have, but well proportioned. His hands were wide, the palm was long and broad, and hollow like a scoop. His fingers were short in proportion to the rest of his hand. His fingernails were like chisels. The only place they had no hair was inside their hands and the soles of their feet and upper part of the nose and eyelids. I never did see their ears, they were covered with hair hanging over them.
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There’s no snuff box or tobacco in Sasquatch Sunset, it seems. But there seems to be a scene involving psychedelic mushrooms (inspired by Tenacious D no doubt). Like I said, I don’t have my hopes raised with this movie; I know I’ll watch it eventually, but part of me suspects I’ll hate it the same I would hate all the examples of Bigfoot Erotica littering the e-Book market.
No matter. I can always cleanse my palate by renting Harry & the Hendersons.
