Sasquatch

This film came highly recommended to me by my friend Erika. After this and the copy of City Heat she and her husband got me for Christmas last year, I can only conclude that she is harboring a deep hatred of me and wishes me to be miserable at all times.

This film, “based on actual accounts”, according to the back of the DVD case, concerns an expedition into the wilderness of Canada or somesuch unnecessarily cold place in the hopes of retrieving a downed plane and its passengers. As one might infer from the title, however, things are complicated by the fact that this is sasquatch territory. As one might infer from a movie that prides itself on being about people being menaced by fucking bigfoot, it’s not good at all.

The film stars Lance Henriksen, who is normally fully reliable even when he’s in a completely dogshit film like this one, but even he is beaten down by this awfulness, spending the entire film looking cranky and miserable. Led by his proud example, the rest of the cast is equally useless, taking their undeveloped roles and making sure each of them has one character trait to rely upon and nothing else. The directing is typical Sci-Fi Original Movie nonsense (I don’t know for sure that this was actually a Sci-Fi channel movie, but I refuse to believe this was made with the intention of a theatrical release), complete with ridiculously overdone camera flashiness coupled with endless scenes of walking through the woods. It reminded me at first of Survival Quest, another film where Lance Henriksen leads a group of people through the wilderness, with the obvious difference being of course that that film was half-decent while this movie is all bad.

Perhaps the best, and by best I of course mean worst, part of the movie is the title character. The sasquatch is a piece of work here, and when I describe him to you you’ll understand completely why these characters just had no chance against him. He was able to drag a 2+ ton plane through a few miles of wilderness, is fast enough that he can be standing still when someone fires at him from about fifteen feet away and still dodge it, and he’s somehow smart enough to understand what a DNA analyzer and GPS tracker are, and knows to specifically target them. Add to this the fact that, when finally revealed, he pretty much just looks like an ape, and it all becomes clear: they haven’t been sparring with a sasquatch at all, but Gorilla Grodd! Hell, if the Flash has trouble with him, of course this pack of tools isn’t going to stop him. If only the rest of the Rogues Gallery had shown up, then this movie could have really cooked.

Rating: ½ *