Page 38 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - November 2013 Edition

Americas’ Obsession with Bigfoot Doc NYC Review: ‘Shooting Bigfoot’ Takes A Hilarious Look At Americans’ Obsession With Sasquatch by Drew Taylor Indie Wire For some reason, we are in the midst of a mini- sasquatch frenzy. It seems like there are at least a half dozen basic cable shows devoted to finding, cataloguing, and trapping the legendary bigfoot monster; a hairy, humanoid creature said to resemble primitive man. There have been just as many low-budget horror movies devoted to the creature in recent years, including a new film by Bobcat Goldthwait— found-footage flick “Willow Creek” that was just picked up by MPI. It’s into this churning maelstrom that British documentary filmmaker Morgan Matthews eagerly drops himself in, and authenticating the carcass as real and touching, poignant, insanely human moment in “Shooting Bigfoot” examines where Bigfoot announcing that he would like to make as much a movie that’s otherwise filled with larger-than- really lives: in the swampy crossroads of faith, money as is humanly possible on this seemingly life characters chasing even larger dreams. opportunism and willful, goofy ignorance. game-changing discovery. Biscardi has the kind of foul-mouthed, Matthews begins the movie by claiming Of course, that never happened, because amiable attitude of an optimistic East Coast to have been enraptured by the Bigfoot a costume company noticed that the photos gangster. After interviewing an eye witness mythology as a child and shocked that, even as Dire, Biscardi, and their accomplices claimed whose story seemed to drag on forever, Biscardi the supposedly real footage of the creature was was a Bigfoot body looked suspiciously like one snaps, “Ask the guy the time and he builds you revealed to be a series of elaborate hoaxes, that of the costumes they sell over the web. Soon a fuckin’ watch.” The “team” Biscardi puts the “cult of Bigfoot is still very much alive.” enough the hoax was revealed in full: they had together, including members of his own family, Wondering what drives people who are openly bought the costume, filled it with road kill bits has its own ramshackle charm, like a state-of- flying in the face of scientific fact, Matthews and claimed it was real. According to Dire, he the-art platoon that was just unleashed from a travels to America and embeds himself with was a rube playing a prank who was taken psychiatric ward. four amateur Bigfoot hunters, each with their advantage of by Biscardi’s lust for attention and And Dallas and Wayne are just … Dallas own unique angle on tracking the mythical fame. (Biscardi claims that he knows nothing and Wayne. They amble around the backwoods monster. about these claims and was taken in by the of Ohio without much purpose but with a lot of In Ohio, we meet Dallas Gilbert and boys’ story, just like the rest of the world.) drive. It’s like watching “Prince Avalanche” but Wayne Burton, a pair of backwoods Bigfoot For a while you think that this could be with more Bigfoot mating calls and hunters who claim that they have regular the crux of the documentary: the very human “shamanistic” chanting. At some point Dallas encounters with hairy beasts (Dallas, who squabbling over a very inhuman monster. But recounts an accident he had where they had to appears to be missing most of his teeth, says that this idea is only teased out for so long. While graft his skull using sheep bone, something that they prefer to be called “Sasquatch” instead of interviewing Biscardi at his home in northern he says gives him an advantage into the animal “Bigfoot”). They’re both low rent “Bigfoot California, the documentarian (who has world because their DNA mixed. But they’re researchers” who have spent years taking fuzzy interviewed countless Bigfoot eye witnesses, the most genuine of the bunch; good old boys photographs in the woods where they live in including our friends Wayne and Dallas) shows without much to do but who truly believe that rural Ohio. (These photos are wallpapered in Matthews footage from his latest opus: they’re tracking an elusively mythological Dallas’ crummy “research library” in his home.) “Anatomy of a Bigfoot Hoax.” Like Dire, beast. They are utterly convinced and lack any kind of Biscardi is desperate to clear his name; “Shooting Bigfoot” is riotously self-awareness. Meanwhile, in San Antonio, apparently in the community, helping to forge a entertaining, from the opening animated title Texas, a homeless woman places a 911 call to Bigfoot discovery is akin to wearing a big, furry sequence (complete with plucky banjo music) to local law enforcement reporting that a “big scarlet letter. the final moments which threaten to ruin the thing” covered in fur terrorized her camp in the Each of the so-called experts, either fed entire movie (apparently the huckster allure of woods and devoured an entire deer carcass right up with Matthews’ smart-alecky British attitude phony sightings is too much to resist). in front of her. Matthews arrives in Texas or wanting to prove his line of questioning Matthews is a funny, intelligent documentarian shortly after Rick Dire, a self-described wrong, invite the filmmaker along on their who has clearly modelled himself on the “Bigfoot master tracker” who has a Chevy truck Bigfoot hunts: Wayne and Dallas in Ohio, Dire similarly dry, quick-witted British journalist Jon emblazoned with his own photo. Dire is also in San Antonio, and Biscardi in god-knows- Ronson, and who paints three separate portraits notable for being involved in the biggest where. Each section of the movie develops its of everyday people who are desperate to Bigfoot-related scandal in recent memory. own rhythm and tempos, feeling almost like believe. Whether or not that extends into In 2008 Dire claimed on YouTube that three separate buddy movies, or maybe road delusion is something that the viewer can make he had the body of a dead Sasquatch in an movies (with a bit of a “fish out of water” vibe up their minds about. But for us, we were happy oversized refrigerator, which we’re pretty sure thrown in for good measure). With Dire, the to just be along for the ride. [] is based on something they saw in a gangster mood is prickly and antagonistic. When movie on late night television. Dire and his Matthews asks him how one gets qualified to be The Store That Caters accomplice, a fellow Georgia hunter, would a “master tracker,” Dire snaps back, “What are Exclusively have remained relatively obscure had it not been your qualifications on being an asshole for Tom Biscardi, an attention-seeking filmmaker?” In the Texas woods, the two meet To The World-Wide Members of “documentarian” and Bigfoot expert who held a young homeless man, which leads Dire to The ‘X’ Zone Nation an international press conference, both open up about his own upbringing, and it’s a www.xzonestore.com