Valley of the Sasquatch (2015)

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

Memorable, crazy movie

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

This film tells the story of his father and son who visited their place of residence in a remote forest after that, all of which became chaotic, when mysterious creatures began to terrorize them. This film has a weakness that is the very bad acting of the actor in this film.

It's easy to push aside this whole project as yet another creature-feature with the umpteenth attempt to revive the (in my humble opinion) most unrealistic and pathetic monster of all: Sasquatch (or Bigfoot or whatever local legend like to call him). And to be sure: all the scenes where we see the creature (in fact there's a whole pack of them) stumble around and fight and roar, this movie is as cheesy as you can expect. It beats me why nowadays (this movie dates from 2015), with so much more technique at your disposal for special effects and CGI, they still dare to come up with guys in furry ape-suits! But surprisingly enough there's another side to this movie. It's about a father and son who, forced by financial reasons, come to live in a shabby shed-like cabin in the middle of the woods. They evidently have mutual issues, the son being weary of his fathers unemployment and his tendency to drink (there's some innuendo that this drinking had something to do with the car-accident that caused the death of the mother-figure) and of the fact that he is forced to live in some dilapidated hovel and not being able to go to college. And the father is weary of his sons passive, complaining and accusing attitude. Then an odd couple appears: an old school-buddy of the father who turns out as an obnoxious drinking and pot-smoking bully, and the boys uncle who is the opposite and acts kindly and understanding to the boy. The four of them leave for a hunting-hike in the woods, which at last (we're some 30 to 45 minutes into the movie by that time!) triggers the Sasquatch-assault.It's like looking at two totally different movies somehow put together. The one where we follow the father and son is actually very good and compelling, supported by some great photography, by a good script and strong dialogues and by very convincing acting of both the father and son characters. I was especially impressed by young Miles Joris-Peyrafitte, who seems like a real promise to me for the future. Even during the attack of the sasquatches on the cabin, where one preposterous scene after another drags the movie down to level zero or beyond, the excellent acting of Joris-Peyrafitte all the time shines through. And while the direction of all the sasquatch-turmoil seemed almost amateurish, the direction of the scenes within the cabin, where father and son are time and again being surprised by yet another assault (stones flying through the windows, a sasquatch falling through the ceiling) is actually very good, the jump-scares that it gave me were almost as genuine as the ones both actors pretended to have (almost as if the director for a more realistic effect didn't warn the actors that rocks would be thrown through the windows!).The ending of the movie illustrated the dual character very well: on the one side the son making a gesture of peace in stead of using his rifle to kill the beast, which makes for an almost moving moment; on the other side the last one standing sasquatch looking as preposterously silly as during the rest of the movie.Well, a silly creature-feature was all I expected (I admit, such movies are my guilty pleasure), so this two-sided movie didn't exactly gave what they promised on the cover of this DVD. But in the end it gave so much more and while watching I was really kind of sorry when at last the sasquatches turned up. I see on IMDb that director (and writer and producer) John Portanova seems to do mostly horror-movies. Maybe he should try a serious drama for once, I bet that would turn out very fine (if not better!) then the horrors.

You have to make sure that you have appropriate expectations if you sit down to watch this. Seriously - it's a movie about Bigfoot! It's not going to win any Academy Awards. It's not even trying to win any Academy Awards. So you don't come in to this looking for a great movie that's destined to become a classic. You come into this hoping to find a kind of cheesy, low budget, B-Movie at best. And if you come into this with that expectation, you can sit back and enjoy it - because that's basically what you get. It is low budget, it is cheesy and it features basically an entirely unknown cast whose performances are less than outstanding. It features an unfortunate stereotype of the sole Mexican character as a druggie, and it inexplicably includes a flirting scene at the start of the move as young Michael flirts with a girl in town. She gets credited in spite of the fact that she's on screen for probably less than a minute and is given absolutely no lines. She smiles and waves at Michael. That's it. The actress is named Jordan Neslund, it's apparently the only film she's ever been in and for the rest of her life she can rent this and show it to her friends as proof that she was once in a movie. Good for her. The movie accomplished at least that.Otherwise the story revolves around four guys (a father-son, their brother/uncle, and the aforementioned Mexican Sergio) who find themselves staying at a run down cabin in the woods and then go on a camping trip to hunt. And, of course, they encounter Sasquatch - several actually, and not a particularly friendly bunch!There were things I liked about this. Aside from the lifelong memory for Jordan Neslund, even though the performances were unspectacular, I liked the characters. The four guys were all very different from one another, which set up a lot of believable tension between them. That helped move things along. And somebody somewhere had done some actual Sasquatch research. I love Sasquatch stories (don't believe in the big hairy guy, but love the stories) and I appreciated the relationship between this movie and the "Ape Canyon incident" of 1924, when several miners in a cabin reportedly were attacked by several "ape-men." Actually, that story was even told around the campfire as a way to scare Sergio after he had the first encounter with "something" that nobody else believed was a Sasquatch. I would say that this was probably very loosely based on the stories of that incident - and to be honest, I'd really prefer if somebody actually made a serious movie about that incident - whether attributing it to "ape-men" or to local youths (which is the prevailing theory.) That could actually be a decent movie.As for this one - just sit back, set your expectations accordingly, and watch this. It's not going to be the best movie you've ever seen. But it's not a bad way to pass some free time. (5/10)

After waiting for over a year for this movie to come I finally got to watch it. It's not that good. Bad acting and uninteresting characters. If you want to watch a really good Bigfoot movie I highly suggest watching "Exists". Now that's a Bigfoot movie. "Hunting Grounds" pales in comparison.