Director – Ed Raguzzino, Screenplay – Ed Hawkins, Story – Ronald D. Olson, Producer – John Fabian, Photography – John Fabian & Bill Farmer, Music – Al Capps. Production Company – North American Film Productions Oregon, Ltd..
George Lauris (Narrator/Chuck Evans). Steve Boergadine (Hank Parshall), Jim Bradford (Barney Snipe), Ken Kenzle (Josh Bigsby), William Emmons (Dr Paul Markham), Joel Morello (Techka Blackhawk), Lou Salerni (Bob Vernon)
Chuck Evans mounts an expedition into the wilds of British Columbia in search of Sasquatch. The expedition consists of seven men, including an anthropologist, an Indian tracker and a journalist. On a horseback journey of several weeks, the group heads deep into the interior near the Peckatoe River, eventually finding a trail and encountering a fearsome beast.
The Bigfoot film has become its genre niche on screen ever since the famous Gimlin-Patterson film of 1967. This was a piece of film less than a minute’s worth of footage shot by Robert Patterson and Bob Gimin, which they claimed depicted a Bigfoot walking through the wilds. This caused a great sensation in its day. Debate over the authenticity of the film – whether it was genuine or staged – has waged both for and against and continues to this day with no clear conclusions. The Gimlin-Patterson film can actually be seen early on at the start of the film here.
The upshot of the Gimlin-Patterson film was a spate of films in the 1970s about Bigfoot beginning with Bigfoot (1971). The big success among these was not about Bigfoot per se but was the surprise independent hit The Legend of Boggy Creek (1972), which took a mock documentary style way back before anybody called it a Mockumentary. Others films followed, all made independently and intended for drive-in audiences. These included The Curse of Bigfoot (1972), Shriek of the Mutilated (1974), The Legend of Bigfoot (1975), Manbeast! Myth or Monster? (1975), The Mysterious Monsters (1975), Creature from Black Lake (1976), In Search of Bigfoot (1976), Snowbeast (1977), The Capture of Bigfoot (1979) and Night of the Demon (1980). Many of these were mockumentaries, although a good number were also straight dramatic films as well. (For a more detailed listing see Bigfoot Films).
Into the 1980s and beyond, Bigfoot became family friendly after the modest mainstream hit of Harry and the Hendersons (1987). This identified Bigfoot as a shy creature and usually an endangered species and a protector of the environment. This led to an ongoing series of gonzo Bigfoot comedies. Into the 2000s, the Bigfoot film has been claimed by the low- and medium-budgeted horror film and then assorted Found Footage offerings, which vie along with comedy treatments and family-friendly films.
Sasquatch: The Legend of Bigfoot was probably the most high-profile and internationally successful of the 1970s Bigfoot films. It takes its lead very much from The Legend of Boggy Creek in that it has been made with actors and dramatic set-ups but is posing as a documentary. There are various scenes with the party venturing into the wilderness, undergoing wild animal encounters and attacks, along with assorted comic relief with cook Jim Bradford dealing with badgers that keep stealing the food. There are occasional digressions to depict Bigfoot encounters from the past, before the group find the trail of Bigfoot and set a trap for it. There is no dialogue, instead everything is relayed by voiceover narration.
The major failing of this is that the mockumentary approach as applied here is not that interesting. The film models its approach on the nature documentaries of the 1950s in that we follow the party as they amble through the woods. There are a lot of nature scenes where the landscape and animals frolicking are occasionally impressive to watch. There is even one scene where a cougar attacks the horses and another where Lou Salerni fights a bear that are alarmingly realistic. All of this is laid over by an avuncular, laidback narrator in exactly the same style of a 1950s nature documentary. But none of it makes for a particularly dramatic or interesting film.
Where the film does pick up somewhat is when it has the team on the track of the Sasquatch and in particular during the scenes at the climax where the group sets a series of traps at night to detect its presence and sit in wait. These scenes have a certain tension. Although, like all of the other Bigfoot films of this era, Bigfoot only remains a shadowy creature, neither being captured or even properly encountered with the men eventually giving up and deciding to return home following its assault on their camp.
Trailer here
Full film available here