The Legend of Bigfoot (1975) User Reviews

"The film you are about to see is authentic" - Ivan Marx

[capkronos · 3/10 · 31 July 2006]

It weighs 500 pounds, is 8 feet tall, leaves behind 18-foot footprints wherever it goes and has demonic red glowing eyes. Some reports claim it's a vicious creature possessing mystical/supernatural powers that's responsible for cattle mutilations and snapping the necks of large bears. Others say it's really a large, benevolent, almost cuddly hairball with a strict vegetarian diet. Well, "that sometimes eats fish." And it's known by many names; The Oh-Man, Bush Man, Ape Man, Abominable Snowman, Sasquatch, Yeti and, yes, the most common namesake, The Big Foot. Follow geriatric Davey Crocket wannabe Ivan Marx through this "authentic" documentary as he scours the US and Canada in search of the elusive beast that strikes fear in the hearts of many a redneck. His trip takes him up and down the west coast as he takes a peak behind every other tree in such picturesque locales as the Redwood Forest, Oregon, the Yukon Territory in Canada, Alaska, California and Wyoming. Learn about the frustrations of being a professional Big Foot hunter (i.e. rain washing away tracks before you can get to them)! See 700-year-old paintings of the monster and the more contemporary artwork of Sasquatch painter extraordinaire Yukon Annie! Find out the secret ingredients that go into a "Bigfoot Burger!" But most of all, see how many times the movie veers completely off course because they are seriously lacking in booga-booga footage, information and/or interviews with delusional white trash who've claimed to have really seen Mr. Yeti Man.

I'm not quite sure what bearing witness to the moose mating ritual has to do with Big Foot, but for some reason they chose to include it here. Whoa. Wait a second! Now that I'm thinking about it, what do caribou, oxen, goat, deer, birds, spiders, frogs, beavers, bears, raccoons, mountain lions, coyotes, salmon and owls (all of which get mucho screen time here) have to do with Big Foot? About as much as the segment about "ground squirrels in love" on what they call "God's Earth;" one of which is savagely run over by a car and limps back into its hole... Well, I don't want to follow the lead of the filmmakers and our rambling narrator / host by getting completely off topic to pad out this review...

But most of all, this seems to be a celebration of Ivan Marx the man... the myth... the legend. He goes beyond the call of duty to convince us he is a legendary adventurer. A true mountain man. Expert tracker. Maverick explorer. Nature expert. King of the outdoorsman. And while he's busy tooting his own bugle, you'll be busy taking a nap. It's all fairly harmless, I guess, but not really all that informative. Ivan even drags his wife Peg along on some of his duller-than- dishwater narrated home movie adventures, though she tries her best to keep herself off camera. There are a few pluses; namely travelogue footage. It's borderline charming in its simplicity at times and has some OK nature photography, but you can get better-looking footage without the self-congratulatory track by tuning in to National Geographic or The Travel Channel on any given day.

And before I forget, strategically placed at the very end is what we've finally come to see: Marx's supposed "authentic" Big Foot footage, which is basically a minute or two's worth of a hairy monster (i.e. man in a furry suit) cavorting in the woods, naturally shot from a far distance, or as he likes to call it "unchallengeable proof" of the creature's existence. Somehow it failed to make me a believer.

Bigfoot: Man in tights

[Zeegrade · 3/10 · 2 March 2010]

Imagine an episode of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom only instead of Marlin Perkins narrating you have an obsessive tracker who sees signs of bigfoot in all of the wildlife on film. That obsessive tracker is Ivan Marx and this is "The Legend of Bigfoot" a fictional documentary about a man that follows leads of the legendary apeman throughout the Northwest United States, Canada and Alaska. To say that he becomes a little fanatical is putting it lightly. After Marx captures some very questionable footage of what appears to be a guy in a gorilla suit skipping through the woods while waltzing with an imaginary partner he begins his pursuit of more "documentation" by stalking the creature all over the country. Where does this guy get his money from. It had to cost quite a bit to travel from state to state looking for bigfoot even in the seventies. Maybe its all the money he saved on gas by driving his red Volkswagen bug everywhere. Yeah, nothing says outdoorsman quite like a V.W. bug. Dork. Once he gets to a new location every natural act performed by the animals gives him insight into the creature. Geese arrive. Bigfoot must be migratory. Moose mate in the woods. Bigfoot must hunt here. A squirrel gets run over by a Buick. Bigfoot must have ties to the United Autoworkers. If Marx stumbled across a Snickers wrapper he would probably assume that bigfoot works in a chocolate factory. There's some other supposed footage of bigfoot that are just as silly and also appear to be just some stooge in a suit. Suffice to say this was as convincing as "Harry and the Hendersons" as far as lending credibility of bigfoot existing somewhere in the Pacific Northwest or anywhere else for that matter. Rumor has it Bigfoot's lawyer served Marx with stalking papers and he's now not able to come within 500 yards of him. I have the video to prove it.

Bigfoot-themed travelogue

[ofumalow · 4/10 · 19 January 2010]

This weird hybrid of nature footage, first-person narrative and fictive content is unimaginable as a theatrical release today--but such oddball packages (mostly from "Sunn Classics"), and many Bigfoot-themed features, managed to get fairly wide release in the 70s.

People dislike this cuz it's mostly the narrator's phony reminiscences (re-enacted on screen as if they were shot while happening) of his career as a naturist eventually obsessed with that rarest of alleged critters, Bigfoot. We only glimpse the latter in climactic footage of what very much looks like a tall guy in an ape suit. (The famous raw footage of an alleged Bigfoot is much more convincing, if not entirely so.) It's like an especially crudely-crafted episode of "Wild Kingdom," plus a couple actors in fuzzy focus and hairy suits.

This is an oddity, but hardly a fascinating one. Indeed, it's a bit of a slog, with no real payoff. There are better Bigfoot movies. If that's what you're into.

I want my dollar back!

[yashicad · 1/10 · 22 October 2007]

This movie is about 90% stock footage of animals with a really dull voice-over talking about Bigfoot. If I had a dollar for every time he said the name "Bigfoot" throughout this 92 minutes of coma inducing stock footage, I could take it and buy a decent movie. I like cheesy movies, but this isn't even remotely entertaining. By the one hour mark you will be praying for the sweet release of death. It took me not once, not twice but THREE different times before I could manage to watch this stinker all the way through. It became a challenge or a quest if you will, to watch this movie until the end without turning it off. At one point we are treated to a guy in a really cheap, and I do mean cheap suit hobbling around as a "wounded" Bigfoot. At the end of the movie (yay!!!) we get to see another shot of a guy in a suit splashing around in some water along with a young Bigfoot nearby. I was shocked and amazed that this was actually marketed as authentic footage back in 1976! Anybody that would believe this was actual footage of an undocumented, bipedal primate needs to get some serious help. If you want to waste 90 minutes of your life just save your dollar (thats what I paid) and go sit down outside and watch a blade of grass grow for that amount of time.

What a bunch of hogwash!

[BA_Harrison · 2/10 · 28 March 2012]

Tracker Ivan Marx, who stars in and narrates The Legend of Bigfoot, purports this to be an authentic documentary on the search for Bigfoot, one that offers incontrovertible evidence of the creature's existence. Is his claim sincere? I doubt it, the supposedly genuine footage of Sasquatch being far from convincing. But even if if this is a bona fide attempt at proving the legend of Bigfoot to be true, the fact remains that it is a crushing bore, consisting primarily of crappy hand-held wildlife footage accompanied by Marx's terrible Disney-style voice-over.

As Marx's investigation leads him North to the supposed Bigfoot breeding ground in the Arctic Circle, viewers get to enjoy nature movie-making its most banal—young coyotes meddling with a skunk, ground squirrels in love, moose mating rituals—while the presenter prattles on about survival of the fittest and animal migration patterns. Marx also caters for history buffs, giving a brief lesson on ancient tribal art and the gold rush in the Yukon. Sadly, those looking forward to his 'unchallengable proof' of Bigfoot will be left seriously wanting, the film's only footage of the creature being a few minutes of shaky film, shot from a distance, of what could easily be a man in a gorilla fancy dress costume.

It's Actually A Fun To Watch Documentary

[Rainey-Dawn · 5/10 · 29 October 2015]

I got this film in the Mill Creek Drive-in 50-pack film collection. This is not a grand documentary but there is something fun about it to watch. What makes this film enjoyable is the narrator believe it or not.

Our narrator is very enthusiastic and narrates the story well. Believe it or not he is the highlight of this film. Almost comical to listen to him because he sounds overly crazy about finding Bigfoot but it's good!

This documentary has a lot of stock-footage and older photos as well as some quirky dramatization footage. There is some historical information about society and bit of information of historical information of Bigfoot (to take with the grain of salt).

If you are remotely interested in Bigfoot then I would recommend this film. It is actually entertaining.

5/10

Mad as a box of talking slippers

[Bezenby · 5/10 · 30 July 2016]

I have watched many a bad movie, but never one in which there is no acting, or even dialogue spoken. This entire film is narrated, and is part of the old Bigfoot craze of the seventies, which includes such weird arse films as 'The Capture of Bigfoot', 'Creature of Black Lake', 'Legend of Boggy Creek' and 'Night of the Demon' (see that one now).

This one involves a tracker called Ivan and his wife Peggy starting off all sceptical about the old Bigfoot and eventually becoming fanatics about the whole thing. You get lots of footage of Ivan walking around, looking at bear corpses, watching Caribou get it on, and hiding in bushes knocking one out while watching Bigfoot wander around.

I can't give this one a bad marking because I could not take my eyes of the screen. This film is seriously strange. Wait until you see the bit with the squirrel being run over and the many, many questions that bit raises. Or the bit where the film goes back in time to a mining town where a Bigfoot appears, speaking in the voice of a dead woman. You don't get to see that, mind. The narrator just takes you through that, as he does with everything here.

Truly bizarre, and worth watching. I can't believe there are comments on here that actually allude to the authors being genuine Bigfoot hunters. That just adds to the madness.

Poorly done "documentary"

[Wizard-8 · 7 June 2014]

It is extremely unlikely that a filmmaker today would make a movie like "The Legend Of Bigfoot". Even if by miracle it happened, there is no way a film distributor would try to release it to theaters. And all that unlikelihood is a good thing, if you ask me. If you are looking for proof of Bigfoot or at least a serious examination of the theory, you would best look elsewhere. I don't know who Ivan Marx is (or was), but he sure doesn't come across as an authority on the subject of Bigfoot. When he uncovers the few moments of "proof" in the movie, he says that authorities (who he never specifically identifies) back up his claims. But most of the movie is not a serious look one way or another to Bigfoot's existence. In fact, the movie plays like they took a number of wildlife home movies with Marx, added a few minutes of linking footage as well as a lot of boring and unconvincing narration, and waited for the audience to fork over its bucks. I am sure people who saw this movie back in 1976, even those that were kids, were really let down by this documentary. Don't join them.

I am at a loss...

[denmn · 4/10 · 6 June 2009]

...I mean, empirically, this film is a disaster- grainy stock footage, utterly no useful information about the Bigfoot legend, oddly tangential narration...but my fiancée and I had an absolutely great time watching the thing. It's utterly bazonko portrait of a cranky, loony obsessive old coot making the most tenuous points in pursuit of his lifelong obsession is worthy of the full-on MST3k treatment. I mean, sure, they've already done the Bigfoot-y 'Legend of Boggy Creek 2', but this 'documentary' offers comic possibilities aplenty. There's the 'critchety old man' angle, the 'discursive, seemingly completely-unrelated stock footage to fill up running time' thread. The possibilities are endless. This came included with one of the invaluable Mill Creek 50 Movie value packs, and, if the other 49 films included turn out to be total nothings, I feel like I'll have gotten my money's worth on this one alone. I'll give it a '4', just because we're walking around with big, goofy smiles right now...

Myth and fact

[the_sagebrush_kid · 5/10 · 23 August 2007]

I got this movie in a blister pack for a dollar with another movie. Being a armchair detective about Sasquatch, Yowie and Alma I was interested in what this was about. I never heard of Marx, but I did see once the footage of the "limping" or sometimes pegged "waltzing" bigfoot. Even then I thought it was odd. It did in fact looked like someone in a cheesy gorilla suit waltzing about.

Most of the footage in the film was dull and as everyone else here has posted "way off course of the topic." But one has to remember that when you are hunting something that is hard to find Nature is going to come with it. In some respects this reminded me of "Legend of Boggy Creek." Thank god there was not crooner singing "Hey Travis Crabtree......." But again lets remember if the movie used strictly his footage, the movie would be only about 20 minutes long.

The last bit of footage has me raising an eyebrow with some interest. Having seen not 1 but 4 of these beings and a hell of a lot closer than probably Marx would have wanted, I always get a cold chill when I look at filmed footage or listen to its cries. While the supposed young one does nothing at all for me, the supposed older bigfoot gave me some severe cold chills. The younger one looked too thin and his acts too rehearsed or fact. The older one was massive in size. so I am at odds that the footage of the younger bigfoot maybe fake along with the waltzing bigfoot. If the waltzing/limping bigfoot film is real then one need to consider: 1) Could such a creature so lame survive? And if so how much more or less elusive can he be compared to a healthy creature? Sure such a lame creature would not find it easy to get away from hunters and others.

2) That the creature is not JUST lame but deformed, as his one arm was always on his chest and looked stiff and his one leg looks like its stiff all the way up to the hip.

My last statement is directed to Marx' comment about Sasquatch eating habits. Front evidence collected all over North America, it seems these creature have a huge diet and many rancher and farmers have found cattle, goats, pigs, chickens, fish, dogs, deer and other animals half eaten. Remember in the film, it all starts off with the killing of cattle and a bear???? Oh yeah in one report a roaming bigfoot was even treated to peanut-butter sandwiches which it seemed to enjoy.

Not a bad film. A lot better than Boggy Creek if you ask me.

Some of the Most Wasted Time of My Life

[gavin6942 · 1/10 · 20 February 2007]

A documentary or faux documentary about one man's quest to track Bigfoot based upon his following of geese migration patterns. Also features his wife, who is either very devoted or just as loony as he is.

I really don't like giving films a "one" but in this case there's nothing I can say to really be nice about what I was seeing. The film is misleading and excessively boring, if not an all-out fraudulent piece of work.

This came in a pack of movies called "chilling" which is just about the last thing I would describe "The Legend of Bigfoot" as. I would say boring, pointless or asinine, but not chilling. After less than five minutes, I felt this would be a stinker and it never really improved. All we are treated to is one man's droning voice over wildlife footage. If you like deer walking around and such, you might get a kick out of this, but that's it... you're better off watching PBS or looking at natives with no clothes in National Geographic magazine, because there's no thrill in this.

And you say, but what about Bigfoot? Yes, there's a Bigfoot in this movie (actually more than one) but you'll only see him from far away and out of focus, appearing more as a man in a fur coat than anything else. I admit I'm skeptical and don't believe in Bigfoot, but either this is fake and the creators put no effort into it or it's real and they didn't bother to stop by Wal-Mart to buy a $5 video camera. I've seen better quality photos taken with a piece of light-sensitive paper wedged inside a Quaker Oatmeal cylinder (seriously).

Because this film is in the box set, perhaps that means it's in the public domain. I hope so, because if I gave this guy ten cents for the movie it was too much. He should owe me some money for my wasted time and the psychological damage that might be latent and come out in my later years when I start decapitating chipmunks. Thanks, Bigfoot, you've ruined my life, and maybe the lives of the two young men I watched this film with (Seth and Nate).

Bigfoot is Awesome !

[nomad-85 · 10/10 · 21 September 2009]

Come on you people, be serious, this movie was made in 1976. It was made for kids and young adults. Do you remember 1976? Jimmy Carter was President. There were no laptops, or internet, no digital cameras. Grizzly Adams had a hit TV show. The Bermuda Triangle and UFOs were still capturing our imaginations. If anything this film grounded us to earth, and it time travels well. It has dramatic narration, amazing nature footage, great scenery of our parks and redwoods, cuddly animals, road trips in a VW bug (who could imagine a famous tracker would drive a Bug), and cool hillbilly music. You meet interesting people like Yukon Freida, and hear from various North American tribes telling their tribal lore. It showed the kitsch that was the 70's. It took me right back there. Ivan does his best to get the audience to respect nature and understand his love for the woods. He shows his disappointment at orchestrated indiscriminate hunting and the loss of habitats, which is a great lesson for kids, and he goes through his own exploration of the myths surrounding the legend. He then offers his theory so that any kid can become fascinated like he was. This was all done in the vein of Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. I am even surprised Ivan didn't bump into old Marlin Perkins himself. This film can capture the imagination of any normal kid. My ten year old girl loved it in 2009. We think it was awesome! A perfect Sunday morning film.

The Legend of Bigfoot

[Scarecrow-88 · 6/10 · 25 December 2008]

Critically panned "in search of.." Bigfoot faux documentary about an expert tracker/adventurer Ivan Marx, who feels deeply motivated to seek out "the missing link" throughout North America. When Marx captured evidence of what he claims was a Sasquatch, he was met with scrutiny and jeers from "experts"(..when Ivan says this word, it's richly conveyed in his voice his general loathing for those who consider themselves experts critical of his "evidence" of a photographed Bigfoot)and this reaction would haunt him, driving the tracker to search endlessly for further truth no matter what dangers and inclement weather awaited him. The film is more of a document of Marx's journey to find Bigfoot and what he encounters along the way, such as the laws of nature, how the old ways are dying(..he is considered an old breed of what man once was, living off the land, remaining true and honest towards nature and the environment)with modern civilization taking over(progress), and how mankind effects nature in a negative way(..like their poaching, oil drilling, and lumber-jacking slowly destroying the environment and nature). While I realize and understand that many find Marx a bit pretentious in how he constantly reminds viewers of his talents, skills and capabilities as an everyman, I must admit that found "The Legend of Bigfoot" a rather pleasant experience.

I think many aspects discussed as Ivan moves from location to the next(..he's quite the naturalist, giving us information of the areas he travels, the folklore and history of Eskimos, Native Americans, miners, and animals)are truly fascinating and informative. Sure these are distractions from what we are hoping to see, general proof of a live Bigfoot specimen, but Ivan makes an account of what he encounters while hoping to find the creature always eluding him. I don't for a solitary minute believe those furry things we see are Bigfoot creatures(..and the sequence featuring lights in the distance of a Yukon valley are very unconvincing and rather awful), but I thought director Harry Winer and narrator/star Marx are good story-tellers, giving us a travelogue of the life and land of a tracker and his journeys. But, as other naysayers have pointed out, this is supposed to be about the Bigfoot, not nature and it's habits, hunting and mating rituals, so I must agree that this documentary isn't exactly focused on the specific subject of the title. But, I won't dismiss what the film does feature because even if this does belong on the National Geographic channel, I still found it an informative and worthwhile experience. Marx himself comes off a bit theatrical, and certainly praises his abilities throughout, but he's sincere about his subjects(..animals and nature)and seems to know quite a bit about them. I will admit, however, that I have an affinity for films which photograph nature within various potential hostile environments and settings, and for Bigfoot as well(..no matter how imagined and created he is for our amusement, by those seeking to earn an extra buck). It's clear that "Legend of Bigfoot" attempts, woefully according to 99 % of those who have watched this, to ride the success of "The Legend of Boggy Creek", since this features a narrator and a subject similar to that hit from director Pierce. Many will find this incredibly boring and misguided. I can only say I was entertained for the most part.

Bigfoot lovers will like this one.

[novan · 5/10 · 23 August 2002]

This movie is not a true documentary in the hollywood sence. It's more nature footage with a narration. The shots of the Bigfoot may not be the best I've seen but they are used well. That said how can a man in a hairy suit limping shot from about 300 feet away look real. The over all tone is keep me watching even though nothing new is learned from this movie about Bigfoot.

Let's Forget the Whole Thing

[Hitchcoc · 2/10 · 26 January 2007]

It isn't that there isn't some good nature footage. It's just a public school documentary with animals fighting and doing other things. There isn't even the campy awe inspired Steve Irwin kind of speculation. It just goes on and on. Haven't we had enough of the Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster? What evidence there is is so inconsequential that it isn't even worth following. This movie offers no knowledge that wasn't already out there and what do a couple squirrels fighting have to do with anything? I wish when someone had the bucks to produce a documentary, they could have a little more imagination than this. Oh, well.

The warm, gentle, nostalgic glow of bigfoot

[lazarillo · 27 February 2008]

As any bigfoot movie aficionado can tell you there are two basic types of bigfoot movies. First, there are the purely narrative bigfoot flicks like the original "Bigfoot", "The Creature of Black Lake", "Shriek of the Mutilated" (kind of), the TV movie "Snowbeast", and the wonderfully gory "Night of the Demon" (you might also throw bigfoot-sex movies like "Beauties and the Beast" and "The Geek" in here as well). Then there are the bigfoot docudramas inspired by the seminal TV movie "Bigfoot- Monster or Myth" and the very successful theatrical film "The Legend of Boggy Creak". These latter movies combine supposedly real footage of bigfoot with "dramatic re-enactments" of supposed bigfoot encounters, along with often shameless amounts of padding. The regionally produced "Legend of Boggy Creek", for instance, contains lots of down-home Southern ballads and interviews with real, honest-to-god Southern "folk" which is often pretty peripheral to the bigfoot investigation. And "Sasquatch-the Legend of Bigfoot" and this movie, simply called "Legend of Bigfoot" have so much wildlife footage and cheesy voice-over narration, you often feel like you're the watching the old 1970's TV series "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom".

These bigfoot docudramas frankly have not aged very well. Even for people who still believe in bigfoot, they are kind of a gimmicky, phenomenon of their time like "The Blair Witch Project". If you are not a true bigfoot fan with fond childhood memories seeing these bigfoot flicks on the big and/or small screen, you will probably be pretty bored by any of these docudramas, but especially this one, which leaves out most of the drama until the very end. Personally though, I like to put this movie in the DVD player when I am very sleepy. I almost always fall asleep before they ever get to any of the bigfoot "footage", but I go to sleep bathed in the warm, gentle, nostalgic glow of bigfoot.

Pathetic

[bensonmum2 · 2/10 · 19 March 2008]

If I were doing a one word review of The Legend of Bigfoot, it would be PATHETIC. This purported documentary is pathetic in every sense of the word and in every way imaginable. From the braggadocios but ultimately pointless narration to the exaggerated claims of presenting proof of the Bigfoot's existence, it's all just so pathetic. The movie tells the story of (and is unfortunately narrated by) Ivan Marx and his search for Bigfoot. For those unfamiliar with Marx, apparently he was an outdoorsman and tracker of some note (at least that's what he tells us over and over) who claims to have filmed Bigfoot. But to get to the 30 or so seconds of Bigfoot footage, The Legend of Bigfoot's 76 minute runtime is filled with over 75 minutes of padding. Shots of impressive looking moose, sad little ground squirrels being run over by cars, and tired looking Bigfoot tracks are just a few examples of what makes up the bulk of the movie. And when we finally do get to see the supposed Bigfoot footage, in contrast to much of the rest of the film, it's distorted, grainy, and of such a poor quality it proves nothing. In fact, the images look far more like someone in an ape suit than anything else (hmmmm, I wonder why?).

Getting beyond whether or not Marx is a scam artist (take a look around the internet and judge for yourself), the movie is still pathetic. It's as dull as can be and provides very little in the way of entertainment - intentional or otherwise. If you want to see a far better, more entertaining pseudo-documentary with a similar subject, check out The Legend of Boggy Creek. It comes off looking like Academy Award winning material in comparison to The Legend of Bigfoot.

Stretching the definition

[bkoganbing · 3/10 · 15 April 2011]

Calling this film, The Legend Of Bigfoot a documentary is really stretching the definition. I don't think the Academy ever seriously considered it for a nomination in that or any other category. We might consider calling it a docudrama.

Hunter and guide Ivan Marx and wife Peggy Marx participated in the making of The Legend Of Bigfoot. A whole lot of very nice nature film is voiced over by Ivan Marx as he tells of his quest to find the legendary creature.

In the end we do see some film footage of something reported to be Bigfoot. Or it's some stunt man dressed up in a Bigfoot suit. I'm sure the gig didn't end with this film, I'm betting somewhere in this country there's sports team using that same costume for a mascot.

Nice scenery, little else to recommend The Legend Of Bigfoot.

Musings of a man who knows how to make a quick dollar

[sabenge · 1/10 · 28 February 2008]

Ivan Marx, in his infinite wisdom, decides to take it upon himself to find the legendary Bigfoot after happening upon tracks he can't match to any animal and trampling them. With wit akin to throwing a dart at a map, he sets off to various parts of the Northern hemisphere, but only where the majority of people speak English.

I have met Alzheimer's patients who don't stray this far off subject when talking. To make this last 75 minutes, stock footage of everything possible is thrown in including a harrowing story of a squirrel who gets hit by a car and a moose defending his masculinity.

This is less a movie than a testament to the willingness of people to buy into anything that seems strange and mysterious. Although, if you really feel like you need to watch it, I've taken the liberty of outlining the main points so that you don't have to subject yourself to it.

There's more than one.

They don't reflect light.

They bury their own in glaciers.

They can manifest themselves as glowing white birds.

They are vegetarians.

Eskimos venerated them.

There, you didn't have to hear about goats committing ritualistic suicide.

Bears don't kill cattle

[nogodnomasters · 5/10 · 22 July 2017]

This is the documentary film of Ivan Marx, infamous Bigfoot hoaxer. The film starts off as he is one of us, a doubter. He films wildlife and old VW Bugs which I found to be the interesting part as some of the film looked a bit like stock footage. There is no lack for films of Bigfoot (Bigfeet plural?) who appears in the same costume from California to the Yukon where it migrates to breed as what animal wants to do the dirty in California. There is also footage of Ivan in the woods, which means there is a camera man we haven't seen. The first BF film is of Cripple-foot a BF with a limp. If you look at the legs, it is apparent it is a costume as you can see the material "flap" ...someone with thin legs, like a woman, like Ivan's wife we met earlier who is helping Ivan pay for their ranch raising Siamese cats and coyote puppies.

Available on a 50 DVD pack and U-Tube

As carny as it gets

[BandSAboutMovies · 4/10 · 20 September 2018]

According to The Weirdest Movie Ever Made, the book we reviewed at the start of the week, the Patterson-Gimlin film may have made Patterson rich, but Gimlin at first wanted nothing to do with it.

Yet according to author Phil Hall, "After Patterson's death, Gimlin approached his former partner's widow, Patricia Patterson, regarding the failure to provide him with the profits from the screenings of the Bluff Creek film. Unable to settle amicably with Mrs. Patterson, Gimlin filed a lawsuit against her..." with the end result being Gimlin was eventually "rewarded 100 percent of all past, present and future publication rights of the imagery connected to the film."

After this victory, Gimlin was convinced that he should sue American National Enterprises, which is the company behind 1975's Sasquatch: Legend of Bigfoot.

Turns out that while Bigfoot was difficult to find in the wild, he was easy to find in the courtroom. American National Enterprises was also suing our old friends Sunn Classic Pictures, claiming that they were illegally using the Patterson-Gimlin film for The Mysterious Monsters. American National Enterprises and Sunn Classic Pictures may have settled out of court, but René Dahinden, author of the book Sasquatch, was bankrolling Gimlin's legal battles.

Gimlin was, at heart, a cowboy and had little interest in the stress of these battles. You'll have to read the book to learn more - I don't want to give away more of Hall's fine work for free - because it's time that we get to Ivan Marx.

Don't get confused. This is the second 1975 entitled The Legend of Bigfoot. And this one is all about Ivan Marx, created by Ivan Marx and narrated by Ivan Marx. According to Wikipedia, the film receives "praise focused largely on the nature footage and the new information about cryptozoology, but criticism largely focused on Marx's rambling voice-overs (seen by some as self-promotion) and the poor-quality Bigfoot footage, that most have accepted as a hoax. However, to this day, there are many supporters of Marx, who consider him a true explorer and pioneer in the field of cryptozoology."

If you watch this movie and come away thinking that Ivan Marx and his wife Peggy, who would go on to also make In the Shadow of Bigfoot and Bigfoot: Alive and Well in '82, are the Ed and Lorraine Warren of the Bigfoot world, then you're not alone.

Get ready for 70 some odd minutes of rambling raconteur Ivan Marx telling some tall tales. He opens facing the camera, telling us that this movie is the result of ten years of research and he stands behind every word. Seeing as how I had no idea who Ivan Marx was before this movie began, I was inclined to listen.

After explaining to us his pedigree as a tracker, showing us his wife and the cougar pups that live on their ranch and talking about the first men who told him of Bigfoot, Marx learns about the land of petrified wood from his brother-in-law, a place where carvings tell the tale of giant hand and foot having monsters stealing children.

After a series of cow murders and a dead bear near some large tracks, he begins trying to hunt and study something he barely believes in. This takes him to the Oh-mah statues in the redwoods and all along the Oregon coast to no avail.

While on a job filming a cinnamon bear, he's able to capture footage of the beast. Nobody believes him and he becomes being questioned by science. Then he takes us on a tour of b-roll footage of injured squirrels, goats in the dirt, glaciers melting, the Trans-Alaska pipeline, Bigfoot painters, the Northern Lights and more.

He even gets the promise that he'll see Bigfoot from an Eskimo and while he gets the footage of some shining eyes, he doesn't see the creature...because he disappeared behind a rainbow. You can't make this stuff up. Well, you can.

We then watch more nature footage of salmon, geese, moose, caribou and more until we see a young Bigfoot in the stream. The other animals - all from other b-roll footage of course - aren't afraid. "Bigfoot is a benevolent creature!" Yep, Marx also figures out that the creature is mostly a vegetarian with occasional fish meals. Yes, this movie taught me that Bigfoot is a pescetarian!

Luckily, Marx isn't giving up here. He's figured out Bigfoot's migratory patterns and he's on the search for the creature...all in the hopes of protecting him from mankind.

This film was directed by Harry Winer, who would go on to direct two of Becca's favorite movies, the Jamie Lee Curtis starring House Arrest and SpaceCamp. It's a shambling mess of a film and your ability to enjoy it will be solely determined by how much of Ivan Marx's carny spirit you can stomach. As for me, I've spent more than half my life as a professional wrestler, so I was all in for this.

An Unique Experience of Madness

[dszypulski · 3/10 · 7 June 2018]

This movie, though extensively terrible, is an unique watching experience, that I happened to stumble across on Netflix, it has since been removed. I tried to explain this to a buddy of mine and sent him the link on Youtube and have him watch the movie to get his take on it, and in the end we are both in agreement that it's not a good movie by any means, but it's fascinating at the same time. Here's why.

Try to find any information regarding this movie. It's very difficult, there's not much out there. When you couple that with the style of the movie, basically a cut up of home videos with narration behind it, you can genuinely leave this moving asking yourself if what you saw was real or not. Ivan, the tracker, was a real tracker, he was a real hunter, he was a real big foot hunter. he's not an actor, he's not a guy playing a character, the movie isn't shot in a studio with sets. But you see this guys obsession turn into madness as the movie progresses, and it seems the movie leaves you with more questions than answers, questions that because of the lack of information around this movie, will never get answered.

So overall, it's not good, it's like a 16mm educational movie you used to watch in elementary school, but it is very unique.

One of the Top Ten films of 1976

[Kammurabi · 8/10 · 27 January 2008]

Wow this was great. I am surprised it got such a low rating.

For a documentary, this film was ahead of its time. It is hard to describe, but an odd effect descends upon the viewer when watching this movie. You get pulled into a different sort of reality than has ever been portrayed on screen before.

There are several scenes of sublime inspiration...including the random direction changes like when the squirrel gets run over by the car and the squirrel's friend comes over to check on him and then drags him off the road. Unbelievable. I'd never seen anything like that before....and who could have seen that coming in a bigfoot movie?

Apart from the 15 minutes or so that dragged a bit (about 2/3 through), I find little to complain about in this film. Whether you believe the bigfoot tracker or not, it is rather convincing in several areas. Except for the part where the ghost of the dead bigfoot being able to turn the night sky red.

Most of the rest of this film was done in quite a convincing, effective and endearing fashion.

Taken for what it is, one man's account of Bigfoot hunting, this is pretty enjoyable in the same way we like to listen to people tell us stories

[dbborroughs · 7/10 · 10 October 2009]

Story of Ivan Marx a tracker who at first didn't believe in Bigfoot but through the discovery of tracks, hearing stories and an encounter of his own began to believe and to try the elusive creature. Good "documentary", of necessity full of recreations, about the man and his quest. There is something about the way the man speaks and tell his story that makes this film interesting enough to hold your attention for its 80 or so minute running time. While I like films that explore mysteries such as Bigfoot, I'm not a big fan of the inevitable need to recreate the events. For me the recreation of the stories of other people rarely works that well and gives the film or program a sense of cheapness or not taking the subject seriously. Here its one man recreating his story and it works. What I like is the part where Marx goes to investigate Bigfoot tracks and finds that they are coyote tracks. It's a good moment where you get a sense that our story teller and the filmmakers are not taking every report seriously. It gives weight to the material presented since it shows that there has been some effort to remove the bad from the good. If you're interested in Bigfoot I think this film is worth a shot.

A well done Travelogue on the elusive, mysterious Bigfoot

[danzeisen · 9/10 · 21 October 2011]

As a people, we tend to view things like Bigfoot as larger than life. We tend to forget that in nature, things occur according to nature's law, and not our need for sensationalism. Marx is indeed a man of the land, and in the course of this movie draws us in with the often subtle ways of nature, interspersed with some rather amazing things- such as the squirrel pulling its injured mate to safety. Marx speaks of the history of Bigfoot and tells us how he was drawn into the search for the creature. Marx tracks the creature up through the Arctic circle, and in "by the" way fashion, shows us how our species is becoming less and less appreciative of our natural heritage. Marx postulates that the creature migrates and is a fierce predator. His search proves him right on the migratory issue, but he has a surprise that awaits him on predation issue. Perhaps here, for many, is where this film is noted as "Boring." Subtlety, quietness, awareness of self and environment and obtaining harmony therein is not what most modern audiences crave and in so doing overlook a part of who we are, and our own place in nature. As a child I remember the Travelogue type of documentary that would draw one in about places and people one could visit. This film is reminiscent of this and has the ring of truth about it. Is it real? Many think so, and so do I. Even if not entirely true, it is well worth watching, if only to be quiet and see nature in a fresh light, and to take a fresh look at ourselves. You can always turn on sex, gratuitous violence and general depravity after wards if you suffer too much from withdrawal. Lol.