Bigfoot a sci-fi throwback
The new Syfy made-for-tv sci-fi movie Bigfoot is indeed new, and is not to be confused with the Discovery Channel’s tongue-incheek docu-reality series Finding Bigfoot.
This Bigfoot is a B-movie throwback to the sci-fi exploitation flicks of the mid-1950s, when movie epics such as Tarantula and Creature from the Black Lagoon made an entire Cold War generation of young ’uns fearful that atomic spiders the size of pickup trucks really did exist, and that swimming in Amazon River tributaries with no clothes was a very bad idea. And they say you can’t learn anything from watching TV.
It follows in the grand tradition of such made-for-tv Syfy epics as Jersey Shore Shark Attack and Arachnoquake. Jersey Shore Shark Attack famously starred Whitby, Ont.’s Melissa Molinaro as a character named Nooki and Fuzz Track City’s Jeremy Luc as a dude named “The Complication” in a romp about sharks terrorizing a New Jersey beach town over the July 4 weekend.
Arachnoquake, on the other hand, posited that the only thing better than a B-movie about giant spiders or a B-movie about disasters is a B-movie with both. Tracey Gold, Edward Furlong and Ethan Phillips — of Star Trek: Voyager and long hours in the makeup-chair fame — starred in a cautionary tale about what might happen if New Orleans were to suffer a terrible earthquake, and giant, albino spiders went on a murderous rampage at the same time. You can keep your Steven Spielbergs and James Camerons: Arachnoquake was directed by the great Griff Furst (Swamp Shark, Wolvesbayne) with an eye for style and an ear for frantic chomping and biting in the middle of the night.
Bigfoot stars Danny Bonaduce, the artist formerly known as Danny Partridge, and The Brady Bunch’s Barry Williams in a tale of murder and mayhem set in a big, bad, dark forest, presumably somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. The premise is simple: a DJ and a conservationist form an unlikely union to combat a marauding Bigfoot. And the promo is even simpler: “To save, exploit or be killed by Bigfoot? That is the question.”
Sadly, Bigfoot was not available for advance review. The reviews don’t much matter, anyway. In the movie business, Bigfoot is what industry insiders lovingly refer to as “critic proof,” which is to say no amount of caustic reviews will dissuade moviegoers from seeing something if they really set their minds to it. (Space – 7 p.m.)
CBC’S Saturday-night movie showcase features The Trotsky, Jacob Tierney’s disarming 2009 indie comedy starring Jay Baruchel as a Montreal highschooler convinced he’s the reincarnation of Soviet Bolshevik intellectual Leon Trotsky. And all power to him, too: Every self-respecting Marxist-leninist knows Trotsky was the real brain of the outfit. Colm Feore puts in his usual scene-stealing turn, this time as the iron-willed school principal, Mr. Berkhoff. (CBC – 9 p.m.)