BIGFOOT: THE MYSTERIOUS MONSTER (1975)
aka The Mysterious Monsters
Article 4469 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-9-2014
Directed by Robert Guenette
Featuring Peter Graves, Peter Hurkos, William Stenberg
Country: USA
What it is: Cryptozoology documentary

Peter Graves examines the evidence for the existence of Bigfoot, as well as evidence for other rumored monsters.

I wonder if Peter Graves himself undertook the investigation of the evidence of the existence of Bigfoot (as he claims to do in the film), or whether that was just a conceit of the script for this documentary. Whatever the case, I will give the movie credit for being one of the more focused and entertaining of the documentaries of this era that claimed to deal with realms of the fantastic. I myself would love it if these creatures existed, though I do remain skeptical, and I don’t consider the existence of this documentary as ironclad proof in and of itself. There’s a number of touches I like. One is Peter Graves’ noticeable irritation in his interview with a scientist who dismisses the eyewitness accounts of the creature because they aren’t on the same level as palpable physical evidence, an encounter which leads to the exploration into the disparity between scientific evidence and legal evidence. I also like the encounter with a genuine Bigfoot hoaxer. There’s also an interesting point/counterpoint sequence in the discussion of the famous Patterson footage. Still, I think one of the most striking touches of the documentary is the emphasis on the olfactory reactions to the encounters with Bigfoot, as it strikes me that someone faking a Bigfoot encounter might actually miss giving details on how he smelled. In the end, I quite enjoyed this one, and it actually does come from Sunn Classics.