When it comes to entertainingly bad movies of the 21st century, ‘Suburban Sasquatch’ is almost certainly going to make the list of ‘essential’ watches to show your friends, alongside the likes of ‘The Room’, ‘Birdemic’ and the UK cut of ‘Nutbag’ A film that, within 10 minutes of the opening credits, will give you everything you need to know (and more!) about this movie in terms of what your getting into.
The best way to describe this film is to say its essentially ‘What if a Bigfoot Horror movie had been directed by Godfrey Ho?’ Because what we essentially have here are two to three COMPLETELY different plotlines that have seemingly just been cut to and from, with about 5 minutes of additional footage overlapping these plotlines so that the film makers can say that its one big film. Only…the difference here is that the film makers DIDNT film 2-3 incomplete bigfoot movies and slam them together…the film just came out that way.
Plot 1 – The main plot, follows Rick, who is a struggling journalist in a rural town who wants to break into the big leagues and become a professional writer in the city. However, his local paper boss has had enough of that ‘big city’ dream, and wants Rick to just report on things that get sales, not on every random mystery that happens to pop up in town.
Ricks obsessed with a current local mystery in which multiple people are turning up dead with no explanation, and the mystery here is that the cops are seemingly trying to cover up just how many people have died and refusing journalists entry to the sights to report on whats happening. Luckily, Rick has a cop friend on the inside of the force who calls him ahead of visits to these crime scenes to give him time to get down there and report what he can find before the cops get too bedded in. But this in turn will lead to a revelation! Theres a Sasquatch in the woods! and he’s picking off the local residents like I pick off sweet and sour pork at an all you can eat!
Plot 2 follows the cops in the local town, chiefly John, who has taken on this Sasquatch case personally, due to the fact that some time ago, him and his wife had a first hand encounter with Bigfoot that led to tragic consiquences. As such, John has found himself seemingly bearing the full weight of bigfoot on his heart. And he’s decided that not only does he want revenge, he wants to make sure that he’s the one to ensure bigfoot never sets foot on their turf ever again. leading to…well, im not entirely sure what this all builds to, the cops plot seemingly fizzles out early on in the 3rd act…but im sure its exciting non the less!
And finally! Plot 3 which follows Talia, a young woman in a nondescript (though implied native american) tribe, that is about to begin her trial into being a peacekeeper for the tribe. Her grandfather teachers her everything she’ll need to know before going on her journey, and her trial begins at the start of the film when she awakens her spirit animal, a CGI hawk that gives strong ‘Birdemic’ vibes. Her trial? to hunt and kill bigfoot. Its revealed that Sasquatch are mythical beasts that feed on ‘soul energy’ basically killing and eating the flesh/drinking the blood of people gives them power and mystic abilities, such as the power to teleport, regenerative healing and; if enough power is consumed, essentially immortality and indestructability.
Talias tribes are guardians who kill Sasquatch before they get to the kind of power level where they’d be a problem, but unfortunatly for Talia THIS bigfoot has some kind of ‘never before seen’ mythic curse on it, that allows it to become much MUCH stronger than any other Sasquatch ever seen before. Once defeated, she will take her place in the guardians, travelling the world defeating Sasquatch and other creatures…But when Rick falls into her life while bumbling around looking for Bigfoot proof, she begins to question if her faith and planned journey, is really the correct one.
All these plotlines vaguely overlap, with Rick and Talia getting the biggest match up, but otherwise? they’re basically 3 self contained plots that partially touch across the 3 acts.
And, I dont know if im giving the film makers too much credit here, but I get the distinct feeling that ‘Suburban Sasquatch’ isnt so much a ‘so bad its good’ movie, and more a product where the film makers were aware of their limitations, and decided to simultaineously lean into it for their own amusement, while making the audience aware of this with some rather self aware dialogue choices.
Indeed, the films that came after this from the team were a bit higher quality and equally self aware. I dont feel like this is the same kind of camp as the ‘Polonia’ brothers or the films of ‘Dustin Ferguson’ where there is a level of incompitence, which inadvertently leads to humour. To me? this thing screams ‘Adult Swim, low budget but highly aware comedy horror’
For a starters, the script purposfully hits every single ‘bad movie’ trope its possible to get, from an awkward and distant to the point of alien romance piece, to the sasquatch making the same growl on a loop for the entire run of the film, to the purposfully dollar tree clearence bin halloween costumes, to the purposfully bizarre CG effects that I know are purposfully made worse by the film makers, because they show at multiple points that they can do SOME half decent motion tracking.
They’re repetative, but its a planned repetativeness that seems to give the ‘Stuart Lee’ effect, the biggest joke being how basically, if the police WERE covering up the Sasquatch murders, there wouldnt be anyone to cover up TO because Bigfoot basically murders half the town in this movie.
The act structuring is clunky and awkward, but it seems so more by design and less by incompitence. The dialogue was a bit of a tell for me, because there are quite a few passing lines that make you aware that the writers are a bit cleverer than your average low/no budget dudes with a camera shooting an 80 minute gore flick. Just little sarcastic one liners, small attempts at 4th wall breakings, moments where the characters basically say ‘I sure hope this doesnt happen!’ followed immediately by a hard cut to EXACTLY that happening, in the goofiest most over the top way possible.
And to be honest? its a joke that didnt get that old for me. the opening of the film with the Sasquatches first on screen attack hooked me in, and from there I spent most of the runtime grinning like an idiot at the DIY carnage unfolding on my TV, or trying to figure out if these film makers were actually compitent and doing it for the ‘Adult Swim’ factor, or if they just somehow managed to write funny, self aware and semi smart stuff accidentally…But for me? I think theres too many ‘accidents’ here to really say this whole film wasnt intentionally made this way.
Usually im against ‘intentionally bad’ movies. But thats generally because the attitude those films try to take is ‘it doesnt matter if its crap, people are paying us to be crap!’ which, im a firm subscriber of ‘Crap in, crap out’ and have yet to see someone make a film without caring what the end product looks like that appealed.
This film by contrast feels like organized chaos, there may have been some skill issues here and there, but I get the impression that a lot of this is much more curated than the average Asylum or Sterling offering.
Direction is chaotic, but distinct. It feels like friends messing about in the woods, because, thats basically what it is really. But as someone who messed around with a camera and friends in the woods multiple times in my teens and 20s, I felt an absolute sense of nostalgia for those days with this film. Dave Wascavage was writer AND director on this, which im sure helped cement the vision he wanted to put across here. Is it a pretty film? no. But could I easily identify Daves style here from stills alone? absolutely, its DIY design is clear and considered for the most part. It wont win any awards, but I really enjoyed seeing someone tackle the ‘rough and ready’ style in a way that was just shoving a camera on a tripod at midwide and letting the actors figure out the space.
Cast directions maybe a little lacklustre, if im going to knock it any points, there isnt consistency on the tone or style of the casts characters. Some of them basically are reading their lines off of cheat sheets just out of shot, others give the impression they’re in some kind of loony tunes cartoon. Again, im not 100% sure this wasnt by design, but it creates an unusually textured film that always sprung surprises on me and definitely left an impression.
The cine, as mentioned has a rough and ready quality to it that I really quite enjoyed, composition is a mess, the rules of filming are left at the door and we basically just get visually assaulted for 97 minutes. this film is the cinematic equivilent of ‘Nachos Grande’ messy, inconsistent, quick, cheap…but a DAMN delicious time non the less…Only enhanced by some BIZARRE editing which is a lesson in mistiming edits as an art. Shots linger for JUST too long or just too short, CONSTANTLY. Which was another thing that makes me believe it was by design. because the comedic timing of the cuts is too exemplary to have consistently been by accident.
Rounding it off we have a score that, surprisingly fits the tone perfectly, its horror synth strikes and action music. Perfect. its timed in consistently well, and used effectively. tying the entire film together into a oozing parcel of joy.
Somewhere between the live action footage from ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’, ‘Tim and Eric’ and ‘Garth Marenghis Darkplace’ lies ‘Suburban Sasquatch’ a salute to incompitence and an enjoyable one at that. One that I can absolutely understand why it has its cult audience and why professional riffers ‘Rifftrax’ picked it up not too long ago.
I had a really fun time with this one, i’d almost certainly recommend it, the ending may be a little underwhelming, but the journey is more than worth your time.
source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/suburban-sasquatch/
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