2014’s Bigfoot vs D.B Cooper is aaaa….*scrabbles about wildly*…thing. It exists. It exists, and defies genre definition. It is anti-cinema, it has *some* VERY light horror elements, but isn’t a horror film, it predominantly features shirtless men stripping down to their boxers for candid shots, but it isn’t *strictly* porn. It has D.B Cooper and narration describing his infamous plane heist. But it isn’t a drama. I’d say I’d struggle to tell you what DID happen in the movie, but even that would be a fib because I can tell you EXACTLY what happened in this thing and the answer is; not a fat lot.

The film is the brainchild of one David Decoteau The man who bought us “Chickboxer” and “Final Scream”, and here; we’re looking at one of his “latter day” works, and…arguably one of his more sadistic offerings…i’d be kind here in saying that this “isn’t one of his best”. In fact; when “Red Letter Media” covered it on their show “Best of the Worst” they declared this film to be “The Worst movie that they had EVER covered on the show.” and now having sat through all 76 minutes of it, i’d be pressed to disagree.

What I’m going to do here is tell you EXACTLY what happens in this film from start to finish. Spoilers and all, not because I’m being mean and want you to find out how the film ends…but because if I don’t mention the ending there WILL be no talk about the plot, because frankly there’s practically nothing here.

So! The film opens in 1971 and takes place in Ariel Washington in some woodlands. We’re introduced to Bernie, Our (sort of) main character in this (but…not really because he doesn’t really do much) who’s future incarnation is also our narrator for the film, recounting the events of one fateful day when he was hiking in the woods. What follows is 11 minutes of Bernie walking in the woods while a guy in a frankly awful bigfoot costume skulks around (it’s implied it’s watching Bernie) intercut with random location footage and in between the lakes and hiking is 11 MINUTES of interspersed title cards.

After this; we then get an introduction to D.B Cooper basically setting up who he is and what he did, D.B (known as Dan) was a mysterious man who, in 1971 caught a flight and while in the air revealed to an air hostess that he’d bought a bomb on the plane and that his demands were for a parachute, a gun and a large sum of money. He then grounded the plane, evacuated the flight of everyone barring the pilots, took off again and while being tailed by two fighter pilots he jumped from the plane with his parachute, the gun and the money and disappeared, never to be seen again.

We only spend a brief time with D.B in the opening, basically picking up with him as he prepares to board the plane (mainly made up of Stock footage of airports) At this point we cut back to Bernie who, it’s revealed actually WASN’T just hiking randomly in the woods, he was actually heading to a house just on the outskirts of the forrest that he thought would be a good place to getaway for a few days and unwind. However; when he arrives, he’s greeted at the door by a shirtless guy who tells him that him and a load of other shirtless guys have all come up to the house to celebrate one of their crew’s upcoming wedding. With thanksgiving also coming up they’ve decided that, not only will this be a sort of Bachelor party, but they’re also going to hunt some Turkeys.

Bernie still seems a bit confused, but the guys basically offer to take him on board as part of the hunting/bachelor party experience and… after offering him a beer, Bernie accepts! We also see Bigfoot skulk about a bit more and then we cut back to D.B who’s now on the flight and threatens the stewardess with the bomb, giving her his demands on a napkin. What then follows is an extended sequence of 2 of the guys from the house jogging, they stop to get changed, but that’s it. Back at the house, the guys discuss exactly how the turkey shoot is going to go down and they agree to split into 2 teams of 3 and to make it a bit of a competition, but one of the guys isn’t up for killing animals, so they decide to be a team of 2 and a team of 3 instead. The two guys who went out jogging get back and everyone confirms the plan. What happens next, is insane.

As we as the audience are effectively held captive when, not once. Not twice, not three times. BUT FOUR TIMES we are FORCED to watch 4 of the actors in this movie do exactly the same thing, one after the other for 5-10 minute stretches. They wander around the house aimlessly, walk into a bedroom, strip down to their underwear, pillock about for a bit and then put their pants back on. FOUR TIMES. And the only reason I say it’s four times is because, really, IT’S FIVE TIMES. But the fifth time it happens is *SLIGHTLY* different. Because after the 4th time all the guys (apart from the bachelor) decide to finally get the hunt underway, so they head out of the house leaving the bachelor guy by himself. The same shenanigans happen AGAIN but this time he calls his wife briefly, goes to get a shower, fake jerks it in the shower, and then bigfoot who’s been on and off stalking the house for the last 45 minutes or so breaks into the house and kills the bachelor in the shower. But there’s no blood, no visible sign he’s even been hit and Bigfoot ISN’T EVEN IN THE SAME ROOM. THEY JUST FILMED AN ACTION SHOT ON A BLACK BACKDROP AND CALLED IT A DAY!

45 minutes in, the film once again remembers D.B cooper is supposed to be in this movie (albeit briefly) as he hops out of the plane to collect his demands and then evacuates the plane and takes off again (although, the stock footage still shows the plane as full, despite what the narration says). And what follows is basically the guys all titting about in the woods talking absolute bollocks that has NO impact on the story, but slowly, one by one the guys decide to go back to house for one reason or another (be it bathroom breaks or just not being arsed about hunting anymore) and one by one, as they get back to the house the same thing happens over and over AGAIN. They wander around the house a bit, and either find bigfoot who kills them, OR! They wander around the house for a bit, find one of their friends dead (but seemingly untouched) and when they try to flee the house (which takes AGES) they find Bigfoot who kills them. All in the same way, all in the same style.

After a while the only 2 people left are one of the bachelor bros and Bernie who tells the bro that there’s myths about these forests involving killer creatures, the bro laughs at him for believing a load of folk tales and when he isn’t paying attention Bernie whacks him with the butt of his gun, knocking him unconscious.And…if you can believe it, well over an hour and 5 minutes into this thing. We’re gonna get the first actual bit of plot beyond the dross we’ve encountered so far.

As, after having knocked the bro out, Bernie heads to a specific spot in the woods and it’s revealed that…BERNIE AND D.B COOPER ARE PARTNERS IN CRIME! And that Bernie served under D.B in Viet Nam. Oh. and the knocked out bro wakes up and almost immediately gets killed by Bigfoot. So…yeah he’s gone. Anyway! D.B and Bernie reconnect, and shortly thereafter the pair hear the bro being killed and rush over to see what the matter is, where they encounter Bigfoot…and…there’s no other way to say it really…D.B Cooper and Bigfoot have a VERY brief fight. Mano a bigfoot-o. And D.B seemingly wins. Killing bigfoot in cold blood. But! There’s a plot twist. As Bigfoot scratched D.B pretty badly and while Bernie thinks it’s a healable wound, D.B tells Bernie to run. When Bernie tries to help, D.B roars at him and it’s revealed that, like werewolves. If someone gets scratched by bigfoot and lives, they themselves become a bigfoot. Bernie flees and the film ends by saying that somewhere, out there RIGHT now…is D.B Bigfoot. Cut to black, end credits. Fin. what the fuck-.

And the thing is, I don’t really know what to do with this…thing? Because; it almost feels unfair to hold this thing up to the usual standards I cover for these movies. It’s just people jogging, walking or stripping down to their undies ALL SHIRTLESS for about an hour and 5 minutes of the hour and 16 minute runtime. So the debate I’m having is, do I judge this film by what it IS or do I judge the film by what it SHOULD be? Because if I’m judging it by what it SHOULD be, it’s arguably one of the worst movies i’ve ever seen. If I’m judging it by what it’s trying to do, then it’s not great. But it’s not bad.

I’m fairly convinced that there was no script for this, not in the conventional sense. There may have been a running order of events, something approaching a story outline. But; given how little dialogue there is in this film and given that; what dialogue there is seems to be badly improvised in terms of quality. I don’t honestly believe that there’s a page by page breakdown of what happens in this film available. If there is, it’s painfully thin and largely filled with action instructions. What IS presented here is essentially a 10-15 minute movie with an hour’s padding stapled to it, and really poor padding at that. I can handle some padding, hell, if the paddings well written, even if it’s not linked directly to the main story. If it’s well handled it CAN end up being funnier or more entertaining than the main film itself!

That’s not the case here, it’s just inane. Inane to the point that, I don’t really know who the TA is for this honestly; people coming to see ripped guys get naked WONT sit through the weird bigfoot/D.B cooper subplot, the jogging and the random wandering around the house when pornhub exists. Horror fans SURE AS SHIT wont sit through this thing for what horror’s on display. Even some of the more hardcore David Decoteau fans I know have neither the patience or inclination to sit through this thing because SO LITTLE actually happens in it.

The pacing is like drowning in glue, the padding drowns what little plot there is to the point that it makes the whole thing an absolute test in patience. So much so that, by the time the fight between Bigfoot and D.B finally happens (which IS actually quite entertaining and dumb in equal measures) I didnt care about it because I’d lost interest about 25 minutes in and was literally just watching at this point to get to the end of it. It’s just not worth it. It’s not worth watching an hour and 10 minutes of meandering for collectively about 5 minutes of, not even interesting, moderately dumb goofing about.

Theres no real act structuring, theres no lynch pin moments. The film just sort of vomits out this fluff, occasionally remembering that if it DOESNT put a few plot points in here and there, then it literally WOULD just be a “documentation” of people wandering around a wood in 2014, rather than an actual film that people have to PAY to SEE. I can’t even really talk about the dialogue because A: there’s not a lot of it, and B: what dialogue there is is dreadful, aimless, stilted and really properly feels like Decoteau just told them to talk bollocks and walk for a couple of minutes until they got the take. This thing makes “Chick Boxer ” look like War and peace, it makes “Things” look like “Avengers Infinity wars” it’s THAT slow and pointless.

The film was “Co-written” and Directed by David Decoteau who we’ve covered the filmography of a few times in the past, a fun piece of trivia about this movie though is that Decoteau marketed this film as starring Linnea Quigly who even appears on the DVD commentary track for the movie!…she’s not in this film. She has one line of dialogue that’s been dubbed in. She has top billing on this film. holy shit…The film was also “co-written” (used in the loosest possible way) by Harvey Shaiman. I can assure you, I pissed myself out of rage and laughter when I found out that THIS movie of all things had TWO writers…Stunned. I’m stunned. Harvey has 3 writing credits, and this was his last (and probably best known) work.

On the subject of direction, I’m again posed with the question “Do I judge this by film standards, or by what’s being presented?” because, if I lower my standards so far as to judge the film on what’s here, the direction’s pretty passable. You have an hour of people walking around and getting changed. David’s managed to effectively capture that and while it’s maybe a little bit lacking in terms of creativity (I personally feel the sequences could have done with just a few more cutaways honestly) for what this is, it doesn’t look awful.

Judging this on basic standards of cinematic integrity? This films dead behind the eyes from a directing standpoint. It’s flat, lifeless, and BECAUSE of the script it’s working with it’s horrifically restrictive on what it can really do. Honestly? The script should never have left Decoteau’s computer. Letalone got to the point it was directed and shot. It’s painfully by the numbers production that’s trapped by its own total lack of interesting or unique happenings. I’d rather go for a walk for an hour and 16 minutes myself, than sit through this. And I am NOT a walker by trade.

Direction of the cast is poor. But then, again. When the script basically just says “Bernie walks for 11 minutes and doesn’t say anything” how do you work with that? Seriously; how do you direct a cast member on that other than telling them to walk from point A to Point B? Nothing happens while they’re walking/jogging/exploring. The closest to cast direction we get in this film are the scenes where the guys strip to their undies. But that could best be described as David off camera shouting “Caress your Abs more!” and the final fight between D.B and Bigfoot…which again; is less a creative choreographed fight to the death and more a sighing “Well…people have made it this far, might as well make Bigfoot ACTUALLY verse D.B Cooper” it’s deathly dull with a total lack of creativity behind it.

The cine is much the same story as the direction. If I’m judging it from a bar on the floor “This is the script” perspective. They don’t do too badly. Composition is reasonable, they sometimes do some interesting shots, there’s a sense of variety, though I feel it could have really done more to make those sequences really sing. Even if it was just the occasional additional shot, the odd close up, the occasional cut back from a closeup to a mid. It’s those kinds of bridging shots that are really missing from this thing. But of what’s presented, if you put shit in, you’re gonna get shit out. And this is probably the best outcome for the sheer BOLLOCKS that’s been put in.

Judging it “with standards” however, it’s barely a movie, there’s an over reliance on stock footage and B-roll, and not even particularly attractive Stock or B-roll. They’re the most uninteresting bland shots compositionally that I’ve seen. Like. ALL this footage could just as easily be available on a stock site for free, and no one would bat an eye. It would have been nice to maybe have some dutch angles, some close up B-roll, to have ACTUALLY shot bigfoot in the woods and the house for the kill shots rather than shooting him on a black backdrop as a pickup shot and just inserting him in whenever they forgot or couldn’t be arsed to get the shot. It’s TERRIFICALLY slapdash in terms of it’s assembly, with the only positive thing I can say about being that at least they didn’t grade it to be washed out and drab like most horror/dramas of this ilk did and continue to do, AND at least they managed to shoot indoor AND location footage. Some films only do one or the other, but at least this has the woods AND a house to deal with. I know that sounds ridiculous but trust me, when you’ve seen some of the shite I’ve seen. Having 2 locations is a small mercy. Not that they do a tremendous amount with it.

There ARE no good performances in this film, it’s just hunk a dunk guys being hunk a dunks for 76 minutes barely saying anything and barely doing anything but strolling around, sometimes with guns, and even their death scenes when Bigfoot gets them could not be delivered more half heartedly if they tried. In fact, I don’t even think most of them ARE actors. From what I can see on IMDB, most of them only have credits in David Decoteau movies…making me think they’re actually models that Davids enlisted to be in his “happenings”.

Eric Roberts appear in voice over form here playing the older version of Bernie in a performance I can largely describe as “Yawning” (seriously for all the enthusiasm he puts in, he might as well be delivering the lines in between recording Cameo videos) The only performer in this who gets ANYTHING resembling what an Actor SHOULD get in a film is Terrence J. Rotolo as D.B Cooper. And even he isn’t amazing. He shines purely for the total lack of stars in this galaxy of shite. Seriously. This thing is SUCH a waste of harddrive space. I cannot stress that enough.

And finally; the soundtrack. It’s stock music, or at least, it SOUNDS like stock music. Stock music that’s been badly mixed against the on set audio. It’s heavy(ish) rocky sounding music that drowns out all dialogue whenever it’s blaring, has NO connection to the time or place this is supposed to be happening in and genuinely could not feel more “slapped on at the last minute and kicked out the door” than it is. The onsite audios botched too, everything sounds super airy, there’s very little if any ADR or foli work, it’s a sparse show that really does reveal how little effort was put into this production, and just how much contempt the filmmakers had for the audience.

Bigfoot vs D.B Cooper was released on DVD in 2014 by Decoteaus own distribution label “Rapid Heart productions” and it made me laugh because on the spine the films defined as “Sexy Horror”…it’s neither of those things. Extras are fairly sparse, we have a commentary track with David Decoteau and Linnea Quigly in which they basically just openly describe what’s happening on screen (it may as well be an audio description track for all the info you get out of it) and other than that and a trailer reel for Decoteau’s other movies…that’s it. There’s nothing else here. Copies of this are allegedly Region 1 locked. But I had no trouble playing it in my region 2 player soooooooo…it exists.

Bigfoot vs D.B Cooper is a SLOG of a production, a film that would test the patience of even the most reasonable film critic. I honestly don’t know who this feature is for. I don’t know who in their right mind would choose to watch this. it’s anti cinema and the only thing that stops me from full on raging at it is the fact that, Because I KNEW going in that they put nothing into this I can at least partially accept that I shouldn’t have expected anything good to come out of it. Had they set unrealistic expectations i’d have torn this thing a new’un no mistake. But because I know this is one of the flavours of cinema that Decoteau works in, I kind of can’t muster the venom to attack it too hard. This film truly belongs in the “Water is wet, The stove is hot” category of film making. If you KNOW what you’re getting into going into this, then it won’t surprise you to learn the films mostly bullshit. But I weep for anyone who finds this thing with NO idea what they’re letting themselves in for and I can only begin to imagine the pain they’ll find themselves in.

With a non existent script, dead behind the eyes cine and direction, non existent performances and a stocky and poorly mastered score with terrible on set audio. There’s so little here to analyze honestly that I struggled to even categorize what I just experienced. It’s just a terrible picture all round in my opinion and not one I wish to return to.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/bigfoot-vs-db-cooper/1/