Chilling Classics Cthursday: THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT (1975)

Ah, a new year. What a time! Saying goodbye to 2025 and its respective Chippendales wall calendar, saying hello to 2026 and its respective Chippendales wall calendar. It's a time for promises and hope (I know things are hellish out there, just go with it) as we refresh and reflect. I've been doing a lot of reflecting since the ol'...uh, ball dropped and during my reflectin' times I've had some major realizations. The first is that although my brain had me thinking the contrary, I have not, in fact, finished up my Chilling Classics Cthursday journey through the Mill Creek Entertainment 50 Movie Pack Chilling Classics 12-DVD Collection. Somewhere, someway, somehow, I'd crossed it off the to-do list of my mind. Should I be concerned I'd given it the signed-sealed-delivered-up yours! treatment when the finish line is actually still around 13 films away? It's possible. Likely, even! But hey, I can't be held accountable for lapses like that. It's hellish out there, in case you didn't know. 

My second realization is this: Today is Friday! But you know what, who cares? Do "days" and "time" even matter anymore? I would argue NO they do not, and I'm not just saying that as some weird way to cover up the fact that I am posting a Cthursday post on a Cfriday. Besides, when you take into account Realization #1, this post going out on the wrong day makes total sense. It's a theme, okay.

On the bright side of these Memento moments: hey, Chilling Classics Cthursday is back, hooray! And I'm kicking off my grand return with a little curio called The Legend of Bigfoot (1975), which brings me to my next major realization: 

I think I love Bigfoot?

Honestly, it might not be strictly true, but I can't deny the facts, which are as follows:

-- I've been to the International Cryptozoology Museum on more than one occasion! There I was absolutely delighted by exhibits like...someone's painting of a Bigfoot, or a glass case with a hairball in it and a little placard saying, like, "Bigfoot fur?"

-- I think about that scene in the 1980 film Night of the Demon where the Bigfoot grabs two Girl Scouts by the arms and makes them stab each other to death rather often

-- I watched some documentary a couple of years ago about a Bigfoot maybe committing some murders...? Look I don't remember the name of it but it was good 

-- I finally saw Willow Creek! As a found footage aficionado I was prone to like it and I sure did, especially the scene that seems to be the most divisive: The long sequence in the tent where we just listen to stuff maybe happening outside of the tent. It was intense and a terrific example of how found footage's ability to put the viewer in the midst of the action (or in this case, the anticipation of the action)

-- When RNGesus chose The Legend of Bigfoot for this week's movie, I thought "oh neat" or something along those lines 

So you see, Your Honor, while I never really thought about it all that much, the evidence strongly points to the incontrovertible truth that I love Bigfoot. Again I say: What a time!

As a certified Bigfoot lover (not in a weird way), how did The Legend of Bigfoot stack up? Well, first of all, let's make sure we're talking about the right movie here. Please do not confuse The Legend of Bigfoot with any of these other films:

• The Bigfoot Legend...Lives
• Bigfoot: Beyond the Legend
• Beyond the Legend: Bigfoot Gone Wild
• Bigfoot: The Legend is Real
• On the Trail of Bigfoot the Legend
• Bigfoot: Still Tracking a Legend
• The Legend of Billie Jean

Now that we've established that...The Legend of Bigfoot is a...documentary? Hmm, can a film be a documentary if the approach is straight-up sincere but the subject matter is less so? It's not a mockumentary, but is it then a pseudo-documentary? Is the taxonomy dictated by the proven scientific veracity of the topic? Hold on while I take another huge bong rip and think about it.

Let's just call it a cryptodocumentary for anti-simplicity's sake. In this cryptodocumentary, a wildlife tracker named Ivan Marx finds some big-ass footprints and a ball of unidentifiable hair (gross) and decides to put his skills to the test to search for Bigfoot. 

Marx and his wife Peg hit the road in their red VW Bug and travel all up and down the west coast chasing leads, listening to tales from hunters, "Eskimos," and "Indians" (it was the time, okay), and trying to capture irrefutable evidence that ol' Sassy exists. Yes, somehow the scientific community didn't just give Marx an "oh dip, I guess Bigfoot is real!" when presented with the hairball and plaster casts of the footprints. The nerve! And these same people think I should be vaccinated?? Please. 

Looks super real to me for sure! Science is the worst.

Marx nabs some genuine, bonafide Bigfoot footage in Washington--footage that the scientific community once again refuses to verify. Jerks.

Marx draws Xes and circles on a map that correspond to sightings and stories, and the patterns lead him to conclude that Bigfoot is a migratory creature, and our intrepid couple takes off in pursuit. They travel from the desert to the Redwood forest to the tundra. They hit Oregon, Wyoming, Alaska, and head all the way up into the Arctic Circle. 

Things get trippy at times as Marx temporarily abandons his scientific methods in lieu of a more folklore approach to finding the elusive cryptid; after an aurora light show (the screen kind of oscillates between white and red...?) Marx gets a hot tip from a phantom white raven that eventually leads to a long-distance nocturnal encounter with Bigfoot's bright, shining eyes. They are definitely not headlights!! Nor are they superimposed!! They are Bigfoot eyes. Sadly, Marx is unable to get a better look because come morning, the Bigfoot eyes have "disappeared behind a rainbow."

This causes Marx to wail (à la James Brolin-as-George Lutz) "I feel like I was coming apart at the seams!" and get back to his tracking roots...and man, there is a huge payoff! We are eventually treated to so much Bigfoot footage it's nuts. With extended sequences of a Bigfoot and a juvenile Bigfoot eating grass and kind of splashing in some water, Marx totally dunks on the brief Patterson-Gimlin footage. And believe me (yes, I'm talking to you, science) this is definitely a Bigfoot and a juvenile Bigfoot. It is not a man and his wife in costumes! Sure, the Bigfoot seems more regular-man-sized and not the 8-foot-tall, 500-pound beast that leaves 18-inch footprints as Marx describes. That's just a...uh...a trick of the film. Everyone knows that the camera subtracts 350 pounds and a few feet!

Yeah those vaguely humanoid-shaped black blobs are the Bigfoots. The transfer is pretty terrible ("In the Mill Creek Entertainment 50 Movie Pack Chilling Classics 12-DVD Collection?" you shriek. "Say it ain't so!"), reminiscent of the atrocious AI upscaling of Roseanne that's currently on Peacock, wherein no text is legible, background elements are frequently but smears, and elements occasionally look superimposed. And don't even get me started on the extreme cuts and editing! Two minutes have been excised from each episode, which is a-fucking-lot considering the episodes are only 22 minutes to begin with. Jokes are gone, characters are magically transported from one room to another, conversations end mid-conversation, and there are jarring close-ups and framing. Haven't I suffered enough over the years as a Roseanne fan? Does Grok have to take this, too??

Anyway, while it reminds me of that AI upscaling, for the most part the blobby blurring of imagery actually works to The Legend of Bigfoot's benefit as the fakery comes off as less fake if you can't, you know, make out any details. Not that this stuff is fake of course!

The majority of this film--the entirety of which is narrated in voiceover by Marx himself--is nature footage. Some of it is distressing and I'm thankful for that blobby blurring: Goats committing ritual suicide, an injured squirrel limping along, a squirrel mourning its dead mate, animals hunting other animals, the scene of a caribou slaughter by human hunters. None of it is explicitly graphic, but that doesn't make it any less impactful. At other times, the blobby blurring is a bummer because the footage would probably be terrific under more highly-defined circumstances. I want to see the majesty of the massive and metal AF antlers on the caribou and the moose!

"Curio" is indeed the right word for The Legend of Bigfoot. It's an entirely self-serious endeavor composed of equal parts Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, the Tippi Hedren film Roar, and found footage sometimes-almost-but-not-horror. It's as much about Marx and his journey as it is about Bigfoot itself, as his tale weaves in and out of science and folklore and touches on 70s newly-hot topics like environmental awareness, colonialism, and violence against indigenous people. At times, this results in the sense that the entire affair is a little padded on occasion, but there is all that big, beautiful, blurry, blobby Bigfoot footage at the end. Footage, I might add, that the scientific community still refuses to verify! As a certified Bigfoot lover (not in a weird way), I find this completely unacceptable and just more evidence that science has never done anything good more me. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to finish this big glass of room temperature raw milk and watch Roseanne! Season 10 I mean!

Crazy trips, must be 2026!

Boy oh boy, you’d think that it’d be some kind of prerequisite to see every notable vintage slasher movie that centers around a specific date or holiday—you know, the most stereotypical kind of slasher movie—if, say, one wanted to start a blog about slasher movies or write/draw a comic about slasher movies or go around telling everyone they encounter about how much they love slasher movies. YOU’D THINK THAT, RIGHT.

Well, you wouldn’t be wrong to think that, but of course thinking that would not take into account my fast-paced and cutting-edge busy lifestyle, planetary/solar alignments over the years, a woman’s prerogative, etc. 

Yes, that’s right, I was referencing myself, specifically about how I only just saw the 1980 slasher film New Year’s Evil in the last 24 hours even though 1) it came out 45 years ago, 2) Final Girl came out 20 years ago, 3) I came out (of my mom)…hmm I’m not exactly sure when, to tell you the truth, because I was mummified in 2009 and I don’t really know how mummy years work. The point is, New Year’s Evil is so basic it's like Slashers 101, and yet I made a comic literally called Slashers 101 without having seen it! This despite the fact that it’s the only slasher movie that stars Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly...as far as I know. See? "As far as I know"? Man, where do I get off even having this blog!

(PS, yes, Leather Tuscadero was always way cooler but I will take any Tuscadero I can get, especially in a horror movie!)

On the bright side, I’ve now seen New Year’s Evil. On the less bright side, it was only okay. On the even less bright side, it was only okay sometimes. 

It started so promising, too, when the words “Cannon Group” and “Golan/Globus” appeared. If you are anything like me, all of that will get you pumped over the possibilities for action and horror and, though it’s admittedly a long shot, Lucinda Dickey with a can of V8 (where are my Ninja III: The Domination homies at!). I continued to be pumped as the movie began and there was Roz “Pinky Tuscadero” Kelly as Diane “Dee” Sullivan, aka “Blaze,” a DJ/proto-VJ with magenta eyebrows and magenta blush so thick it looked like a couple of magenta Colorforms slapped on her cheeks. Yes, I was immediately drowning in a wave of New Wave: Blaze with her magenta madness, men with black lipstick, women with pink bangs, studded bracelets and chokers everywhere—New Year’s Evil was looking to be the New Wave big sister slasher counterpart to the Eurotrash New Wave gross-out Demons and the naked Trash (get it) New Wave zombie delight Return of the Living Dead. I clutched New Year’s Evil to my magenta bosoms (don’t ask) and told it that while it took us forever to find one another it didn’t matter because our forever was only just beginning.

In case you didn’t know, Blaze is so hot and so cool she was dubbed “The First Lady of Rock” and as such, her duties included rocking in the new year with a live edition of her show Hollywood Hotline in a Los Angeles hotel. She is very busy and important (much like me!) and therefore she has no choice but to kind of ignore her son Derek, who wants to tell her about a part he just won on a television series. Derek is pretty strange, to be honest. And oh, it seems that his father (and Blaze’s husband), who has been “sick” and is supposed to be in Palm Springs, can’t be reached. HMM. 

We are then treated to the musical stylings of a group called Shadow. We will also be treated to the musical stylings of a group called Made in Japan. We will be treated to both musical stylings often, and some songs will repeat repeatedly. What initially seems like a somewhat unique gimmick that renders New Year’s Evil into a quasi-concert film will likely wear on you as you wait for some slasher in your slasher.

Behind her on the stage there are a few seated ladies answering telephones, like some younger, hipper version of a Jerry Lewis telethon wherein viewers can call in and…uh…say stuff, like what they think the #1 song of the year will be. A few moments into the show, Blaze answers a call from someone who goes by the name “Evil” because he’s…you know, evil. He says he’s going to kill someone that Blaze knows whenever midnight hits in all the time zones across America—and the new year is about to ring in for folks on the east coast, oh no!

I would be remiss were I not to mention that Evil uses a voice changer that is so ludicrous I can’t tell whether or not it’s supposed to be funny. Whatever the intent, Evil and the dude from Fulci’s New York Ripper should have teamed up. And yes, I kind of wish I were talking about this on Final Girl After Dark rather than writing about it on Final Girl because I would love to imitate Evil’s phone voice for you.

So in quick order we meet Evil in person, and he looks like a Dollar Tree Jeffrey Combs. He poses as a doctor so that—in a shocking twist of typical horror movie events—he can break into a sanitarium. There he meets a nurse who looks like a Dollar Tree Lisa Kudrow. They find a quiet room, decide to Do It, and then when things get hot and heavy, Evil busts out a switchblade and kills Dollar Tree Lisa Kudrow. He records the murder, and when midnight strikes he plays the tape over the phone for Blaze; he’s all (Evil voice) “See? I told you!” and promises to call with another murder update in an hour.

The police initially dismiss Blaze’s concerns, but when the body of Dollar Tree Lisa Kudrow is found, they decide to let no one else into or out of the hotel. You know, for safety. Meanwhile, Evil digs deeper into his bag of costumes and dons a fake moustache. It makes him look like a Dollar Tree Tom Sandoval, which is really saying something (where are my Vanderpump Rules homies at!). He picks up some girls in a bar, there’s a chase, some switchblade poppin’, some murder, he puts on a priest costume, cure more musical performances.

Derek, meanwhile, has been alone in his hotel room downing pills for his “headaches” (though the actor doesn’t actually swallow said pills and you can see them in his mouth which kind of ruins the movie magic illusion) and getting weird with fabrics and hat pins.

Evil makes his way to the hotel and surprise as completely expected from the moment he is mentioned, he is the killer. Why? What could possibly drive a man to murder, to torment his wife and eventually try to kill her? Well you see, he broke into that sanitarium because he used to be a patient there…but also simply because he hates women! Especially his wife, who has emasculated both Evil and his son Evil Jr Derek! “You castrated me,” says Evil, “And that is not nice.”

Again, I am not sure whether or not New Year’s Evil is meant to be funny…? 

What I am sure of, however, is that this film gets occasionally weird but steadfastly refuses to lean all the way into it, which is a big shame. It leaves people like me a-wonderin’ in a puzzled way when I should be a-wonderin’ in an awestruck way, you know? The slasher bits aren’t compelling—it’s tough to make a “regular guy” an interesting killer in this genre, as made evident by films like The Slumber Party Massacre, The Dorm That Dripped Blood, and He Knows You’re Alone. I’m not saying you have to have a mask, but if you don’t wear one I think you need to go full wackadoodle, like Billy in Black Christmas. I love a bag o' costumes and a fake moustache as much as the next lady, but Evil was way creepier in the few moments when he sported a grotesque Stan Laurel mask.

New Year’s Evil is full of bits-n-bobs that may have been marginally refreshing in 1980, but they’re so rote nowadays that it’s tough to get excited. A killer who spent time in a mental hospital? A killer who hates women? A survivor not finding safety in an ambulance? Honk shoo honk shoo! (That’s a snoring sound, by the way.) There were no shocks, no scares, no surprises, no suspense. Not even any interesting kills to jazz the place up.

Maybe it would have dazzled me if I’d seen it decades ago, who knows. In its opening moments, with all the magenta and studded accoutrements everywhere, I did think that I probably would have loved this movie if I’d brought it home from the video store or seen it at a sleepover or something. But alas, alack, those days are gone and New Year’s Evil is really just something that I’ve seen, if you know what I mean. (“It’s about time, poser!” — you, probably)