“You don’t have Sting. You don’t have the Archies. You don’t have anybody!”

Drake’s rating: All we’re missing is Gavin MacLeod

Drake’s review: I love me some Squatchsploitation. Be it a trip down to Boggy Creek or a search for the elusive Snowbeast, I’m all in on some Sasquatch-related mayhem. And ever since Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin shot that famous 39 seconds of Bigfoot-related footage back in 1967, low-budget filmmakers have been using the man-beast as an audience draw, so Bigfoot movies aren’t exactly hard to find.

Unfortunately, quality films about the elusive man-beast are few and far between. Which brings us to Bigfoot.

OK, let me tell you right now: I don’t know the names of the characters in this flick, so I’m just going to refer to them by their TV showmonikers. Trust me, if you watch even five minutes of this you’ll be doing the same thing.

So we have Danny Partridge (Danny Bonaduce) living in the town of Deadwood, where he’s a local DJ. Tellingly, he doesn’t play one Partridge Family song on the air, so we can all assume that when the band split up, it was ugly. He’s also hyping an ‘80s throwback concert, an event that Greg Brady (Barry Williams) is protesting as the promoters are cutting down trees to make way for the venue. When things get ugly, the director (Bruce Davison) shows up with Deputy Audrey Horne (Sherilyn Fenn) to calm things down.

There’s also some personal heat between Danny and Greg, as Greg evidently became a rock star in the ‘80s, going full Johnny Bravo while the Partridge Family had long ago fallen apart due to alcoholism, in-fighting, and Tracy’s painkiller addiction.

Meanwhile, Mayor Johnny Fever (Howard Hesseman), reliving his glory days through Danny, is insistent that the concert go on no matter what. Which is going to be a problem, since there’s a badly-rendered, size-changing Bigfoot running around and squashing people.

Now I’ve seen some pretty bad Bigfoots. Bigfeet? No, Bigfoots. Large men in ill-fitting furry suits and latex masks are the rule of the day, and it’s a formula that’s been in place for decades. This movie doesn’t care about tradition, though. No, instead of finding an unemployed pro wrestler willing to run around the woods in a furry outfit that smells like dead raccoons and desperation, the filmmakers here decide to go the computer generated imagery route. And it’s bad. So bad. Looking like a refugee from a low-budget N64 game, the titular Bigfoot is even less believable than the rock stardom of Greg Brady.

And no thought is really given to the scale of the creature, which ranges from twenty to forty feet tall in any given scene. That just shatters the verisimilitude, y’know?

Crashing the concert and squishing Alice Cooper, who evidently agreed to a cameo in the movie when his Social Security check was late, Bigfoot scatters the literally dozens of concert-goers. No, I have no idea why they were cutting down trees to make way for this venue, either. Maybe the town of Deadwood just takes its name that seriously.

Nonsensical action ensues as two factions attempt to engage the Bigfoot. The faction led by Danny is looking to gun it down, stuff it, and make it a town attraction. The one led by Greg, which is primarily made up of his retinue of young women, want to keep it alive, presumably so it can continue to smoosh his aging musical rivals. In the process, CGI helicopters fly by, CGI cars drive around, CGI people are stomped and eaten, and non-CGI vodka is consumed in massive proportions by yours truly.

Even as a loyal Squatchian (Squatchist? No, Squatchian) I have a hard time defending this movie as anything other than an excuse to keep Danny Bonaduce out of trouble for the length of the shoot. Which must have been at least 4 or 5 days. What could have been an amusing half-hour short is instead extended out to an excruciating (checks notes)…EIGHTY-NINE MINUTES?!! OK, that’s it. I quit. I mean, there must be something more meaningful I could be doing with my life. Maybe tutoring orphans in obscene sign language, or saving the wilderness from Danny Partridge. There’s got to be more to life than…

Oh, wait. What’s that that just popped up in my queue? Bigfoot’s Wild Weekend?

Huh.

I’ll, uh… I’ll see you guys later…

Intermission!

• This was filmed in and around Carnation, WA. I’m from the PNW, and even I’ve never heard of this place.
• Bigfoot is bulletproof. No, I don’t know why.
• Danny Bonaduce and Barry Williams had a celebrity boxing match several years ago. Rumors that they were fighting over the affections of Maureen McCormick are unsubstantiated.
• CGI Bigfoot beats up a CGI RV.
• Danny Bonaduce was in H.O.T.S. in the late ‘70s. I should have watched that instead. I am so stupid.
• I’m not sure how many CGI heads CGI Bigfoot bites off of CGI bodies in this flick, but he sure does like those crunchy noggins.
• This is from The Asylum??? It all makes so much sense now…