At several points during Shooting Bigfoot I became convinced I was watching a Christopher Guest style mockumentary. It’s full of characters so completely lacking in guile, self-awareness and basic common sense that there’s no way they could be real human beings. I walked out of the screening thinking that the film had come close to tricking me but I had it sussed, it was an elaborate hoax and starred some unknown but awfully clever and funny actors. Further research has proven me wrong though; it’s all factual and the “stars are all recognised and even in certain circles respected Bigfoot hunters. And if they ever see Shooting Bigfoot they’re all going to be very, very angry.
The film is produced, directed and presented by award-winning British documentarian Morgan Matthews who, in a style much influenced by and a little derivative of Louis Theroux, presents himself as a meek and polite Englishman and spends time living with and getting to know his subjects. This allows him to catch them with their guard down and reveal their true human side rather than the carefully constructed personas they want to present to the world.
Matthews opens the film by stating that as a child he was obsessed with the idea of an undiscovered Apeman living in the wilds of America and although he’s become more cynical as an adult he wants to enter the world of the Bigfoot hunters with an open mind and even hopes to find indisputable proof of the beast’s existence.
It’s clear right from the start though, with the films’ opening animated sequence portraying the Bigfoot hunters as hapless Elmer Fudds, that this isn’t really Matthews’ intention. He’s clearly a sharp cookie who doesn’t believe in monsters but he’s able to convince his subjects that he does while what he’s really doing is exposing their monstrous egos and underhanded tactics.
He meets three sets of enthusiasts in total and goes on an expedition with each of them and the footage is all intercut together rather then presented in turn. Obviously, this does take away some of the suspense of whether or not Matthews will have an indisputable encounter with a Bigfoot on his adventures, as you’d assume that if he did he would mention this to the next “expert he hangs out with.
The first of these experts is Tom Biscardi, a sleazy self-promoter who describes himself as The Real Bigfoot hunter, but who comes across as an obnoxious bully who belittles and insults everyone who’s foolish enough to want to work with him, including his wife. He also suffers from Alan Partridge levels of delusion and stupidity. At one point he sets up an interview with a man who claims to have seen Bigfoot but who doesn’t want his identity revealed. Biscardi doesn’t trust Matthews not to blow the man’s cover so he conducts the interview himself and then proceeds to repeatedly use the poor fellow’s real name on camera.
Biscardi has nothing but bad things to say about Matthews’ next hunting companion, Rick Dyer. In 2008 Dyer alerted the world’s media that he had irrefutable proof of Bigfoot’s existence a Bigfoot corpse that he was keeping in his fridge. These claims didn’t stand up to close analysis as it soon transpired that the corpse was actually a Bigfoot Halloween costume stuffed with road-kill. Dyer claims that the whole thing was Biscardi’s idea and unsurprisingly the two men are keen to distance themselves from each other. Incredibly, despite having been exposed as a bald-faced liar, Dyer still has ambitions of becoming famous as the man who reveals Bigfoot to the world. Matthews spends 10 days in the Texan wilderness with him, following up reports from a homeless woman.
At first Dyer comes across as a deluded but affable goofball but as his patience with Matthews wears thin and he probably starts to realise that the documentary isn’t going to paint him in the best light, he starts to become quite a menacing figure. This leads to Matthews recording a Blair Witch style straight-to-camera monologue where he speculates that his decision to spend several days camping in the middle of nowhere with an unhinged (and heavily armed) con artist may not have been a wise one.
It is however a decision that culminates in the film’s most unexpected and startling moment. I can’t say too much about this for fear of spoilers but it’s a moment that either has some of the world’s most exciting Bigfoot footage or is another hoax. But it does leave you wondering just who exactly is doing the hoaxing and if Matthews may be less of an impartial observer than he seems.
Both Biscardi and Dyer are pretty repellent characters so it’s quite satisfying and very entertaining to see them get some comeuppance and be exposed as the blowhards that they are. But it’s with the film’s final set of Sasquatch devotees that the film starts to feel less like an exposé and more like a cruel jibe at the delusional.
Dallas and Wayne are a pair of unemployed friends from Ohio who’ve chosen to devote their lives to Bigfoot. Biscardi and Dyer are clearly in it for the money and know how cash in on the phenomenon but both Dallas and Wayne clearly became Bigfoot hunters simply to give their lives purpose. They may well be deluded but the depressing glimpses we get into their home lives and their recession hit small town show that they certainly haven’t made any money from their hobby.
So while the bickering pair are just as unintentionally hilarious as Biscardi and Dyer (at one point they have an epic argument about who was supposed to bring the bread and who was supposed to bring the hotdogs that they’re using for bait) they definitely don’t deserve the same level of mockery. They clearly believe with all their hearts that they have seen, and even communicated with, Bigfoot and it’s kind of heartbreaking to imagine how they’ll react when they see Matthews’ film and realise he not only didn’t believe their stories but was subtly ridiculing them.
These scenes with Dallas and Wayne have a completely different feel to the rest of the film and actually prevent Shooting Bigfoot from being as enjoyable as it should be. It’s still enormously entertaining but while Matthews does a good job of exploring the circumstances that caused these two men to become fantasists you can’t help but feel he should have handled their delusions more sensitively. Laughing at greedy and fraudulent people is fine; but laughing at naive and deluded people really isn’t. Of course, there’s always the possibility that Bigfoot is real, in which case we’ll all eventually be laughing at Matthews himself.
Overall Verdict: It’s an utterly compelling and at times hilarious look into the psyches of men who devote their lives to the search for Bigfoot. It’s the kind of documentary that will be a talking point for years to come. But sometimes you can’t escape the feeling that it’s overstepping the mark and inviting the audience to laugh at people who don’t deserve to be ridiculed.
Reviewer: Adam Pidgeon