Brian Emond (as himself) is an internet journalist from Brooklyn whose job is getting him down. He thought it would be the stepping stone to a career in investigative journalism, but as it is he has been relegated to creating clickbait reports about the most inane of subjects, and frankly he is sick of it. His contempt for his job has become no secret, especially to his producer and cameraman Zach (Zach Lamplugh) who tries to encourage his colleague but to no avail. Therefore, when a new story emerges for them to cover about a Bigfoot Festival in the state of Georgia, Brian is less than enthused despite Zach trying to buoy his mood, however, there is a twist that neither of them could have anticipated: this could be a real story.
This little item belongs to the mockumentary genre, though despite seemingly well able to be slotted into a style and form by any prospective audiences, they apparently had a spot of trouble working out how to market it, as it went through three titles before getting its wider release. First it was The VICE Guide to Bigfoot, to emphasise the internet satire aspect, then it was the unwieldy 15 Things You Didn't Know About Bigfoot (#1 Will Blow Your Mind) to further lean into the internet send-ups, and then when presumably someone realised this sounded less like clickbait and more of a corny gimmick, it ended up as plain old Bigfoot Hunters, which came across like admitting defeat in the face of trying to be too clever for their own good.
As to the film, well, it was more or less what you would expect from all those shenanigans: snark, snark and more snark. Emond carried a look of permanent offended dissatisfaction on his features throughout, which frankly grew pretty wearing after a couple of minutes, so imagine how it played after nearly an hour and a half. He and Jeff meet Jeff, played by Jeffrey Stephenson, who is the self-styled Bigfoot expert (is there any other kind?), and acts as their guide into this forest landscape that is dense enough to conceal all manner of mysteries - but the question is, does it hide a Bigfoot? Just the one, mind. If you wonder what the plural of Bigfoot is, be that Bigfeet or Bigfoots, alas you will not discover it here as both are used and nobody seems to know which is the correct expression. Maybe they should have stuck with Sasquatches.
Anyway, that question is more interesting than what this lot find for their characters to do, for once some digs at internet journalism are out of the way (basically, anyone can do it, be they qualified or not) we get down to what the filmmakers were really interested in: yet another low budget movie where characters go off into the woods and bicker with one another. This is practically a genre in itself, being as it's cheap to do, emulates a huge and hugely profitable hit (The Blair Witch Project), and you don't even need a script because any tiny film crew is going to get pissed off in such a situation and will provide you with all the arguing you need. This is painfully obvious here, as all the action is relegated to the last five minutes where the film's big idea arrives, that there are more gangsters in the woods than there are Bigfoots. Bigfeet. Bigsfoot. At any rate, if you make it that far you get a pay-off that seems a very long time coming considering how short this is, as it really isn't funny, a drawback in a comedy, but if you collect these things, there are worse out there. Music by Chris Childs.
[Fractured Visions presents Bigfoot Hunters in cinemas 22 October and on digital 25 October 2021.]
