“And then I went home and made boots.”

Drake’s rating: This deserves to be remade with Crow T. Robot narrating

Drake’s review: The Seventies were just plain weird sometimes. And by sometimes, I mean most of the time. But they were a cool and generally harmless weird, like your strange uncle who shows up out of the blue with wild stories about living in Tanzania before disappearing again for five years, and the next time you hear about him it’s on the evening news and your parents just roll their eyes and unplug the phone.

I mean, we all have relatives like that, right?

But yeah, it was a gonzo decade that spawned some truly weird cultural milestones, like disco music and Evel Knievel. And to add to this weirdness were books such as Erich von Däniken’s Chariots of the Gods?, which theorized that aliens had constantly visited Earth throughout history and had basically engineered major human accomplishments. Yeah, it’s a bunch of baloney, but it was a pretty popular novel in the early ‘70s.

It was so popular, in fact, that it was turned into a movie, and one that got an Oscar nomination for Best Documentary Feature* to boot. But even more importantly to any studio paying attention was the fact that the U.S. release of Chariots of the Gods brought in nearly $26 million, at a time when gas was thirty-nine cents a gallon and a comic book would set you back a pair of dimes.

So with dollar signs in their eyes, movie producers opened the floodgates and started greenlighting documentaries with titles like The Amazing World of Psychic Phenomena and Journey into the Beyond, luring in narrators along the lines of Raymond Burr and John Carradine to give their fanciful looks into the paranormal some cinematic gravitas. But while aliens and telepathy are all well and good, it didn’t take long for filmmakers to realize that there was a market in “uncovering the truth” behind legendary beasts such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster as well.

So it was that The Mysterious Monsters dispatched Peter Graves to ferret out the facts about these reclusive cryptids, because who better to investigate the existence of the Abominable Snowman than the former Jim Phelps? And of course Graves approaches the subject with all of the innate seriousness that simply being Peter Graves implies. He watches researchers make plaster castings of large footprints, chats with scientists who debate the existence of the Sasquatch, and stands next to 1970s computers as they belch out information that’s indecipherable to anyone lacking a PhD.

And of course he narrates, sounding ominous as he tells the audience that racing driver’s John Cobb’s fatal 1952 accident on Loch Ness may have been caused by a large creature’s wake as it fled from the noisy jet-powered speedboat. Which makes a lot less sense than a simple loss of control on the water while driving said jet-powered speedboat at over 200 mph, but this is The Mysterious Monsters we’re talking about. Facts and logic are of secondary importance compared to the cryptid unknown.

Reenactments based on the testimonials of those who supposedly had close encounters with a Bigfoot take up a surprisingly large part of the film, with the encounters generally ending abruptly after the Sasquatch is revealed. Like, okay, Bigfoot broke your window and smashed your lamp, you grabbed your gun and opened the front door and there he was, a seven-foot tall hairy behemoth giving you a deadly glare. And… that’s it? That’s where your story ends? I mean, did he apologize for the window or anything? Maybe you talked it out over a cup of coffee? Did you become buddies and drink beer while talking football? I want to know what happened next!

But those details are omitted from the narratives, as if just seeing a Bigfoot was resolution enough and nothing further needed to be said. Or maybe we’re dealing with unreliable narrators who might just be exaggerating a teeny-tiny bit on what they really saw in those woods in the Pacific Northwest. Because, sure, in the wrong light that raccoon climbing a tree could be mistaken for a Bigfoot, right?

Still, for all its pretensions, The Mysterious Monsters is really just dumb fun, especially if you were a monster kid of the 1970’s.** Sure, it’s hokey as heck, but it’s also an entertaining glance into the weird documentaries of the ‘70s and that decade’s fascination with Bigfoot in particular. And Peter Graves takes it all in, seemingly imperturbable and always deadly serious, even when the subject matter is so bizarre.

And, hey, bonus points to the guy who made his own “Bigfoot boots” to stop around the forest in, to confuse anyone out there trying to hunt the Sasquatch. I have to admit, if I had a pair of those I’d be looking all over town for patches of wet cement.

*Which, I mean, REALLY?!! A movie about aliens influencing humanity was thought of as a documentary and not science fiction? We’ll just chalk that up to more ‘70s weirdness.

**Which I obviously was. It was that addition to my rather sparse résumé that got me this MR gig.

Intermission!

• “The Pacific Northwest, 1975.” Why, yes, it is. You can tell by all the trees.
• “Described as half man, half ape, and with an overwhelming stench.” So, my roommate in college?
• The cutting-edge technology of… 1975!
• And we learn that the Loch Ness is both deep and murky. Thanks, 1970s technology!
• A recreation of a barking dog. Yup, that’s definitely due to a Bigfoot and not a squirrel.
• Now we’re in the Himalayas, so we can talk about the Abominable Snowman.
• And it’s back to the PNW. Look, Bigfoot is the star here, and The Mysterious Monsters is going to give the audience what they want!
• Which is more unlikely reenactments.
• “A dark and hairy man-like creature, who was grubbing for roots with his fists.” Yeah, this is definitely my college roommate.
• Ah, the “Jacko” hoax from our neighbors to the north! Sure, give that some unwarranted traction.
• Driving off the road to totally avoid a Bigfoot, and not just a hitchhiker.
• And then it’s boy scouts who see a Bigfoot! Maybe they were after their Squatch badges.
• Man, that Boy Scout has a high-pitched scream!
• And then the grown-up Boy Scout draws a footprint. Well, I’m convinced.
• “Do you know what made these sounds?” I heard Justin asking the same question after I fell asleep under my desk one day.
• “A strand of hair that defies analysis.” Keep away from my hair brush, Graves.
• Then Graves visits a psychic detective, and takes along a plaster cast of a big foot print. Or a Bigfoot print. This is all totally legit.
• “Can you psychometrize what’s in here?” OK, now he’s just making up words.