The Mysterious Monsters (1976)

Awesome Movie

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

There can no longer be any controversy. This film gives definitive proof that such things as Sunn Classic pictures actually existed in the '70's, and they were very cheaply made. They actually did employ inexperienced actors to reenact eyewitness testimony of Bigfoot, Yeti, and Nessie close encounters. They actually did use old Super 8 film with inconsistent sound levels. They actually did have the chutzpah to have some tall guy wander around in a cheap Halloween gorilla suit. They actually did advance the testimony of people like a few frightened boy scouts who were telling campfire ghost stories as irrefutable accounts.Peter Graves's ultra-serious "Dragnet" type of stoic narration is priceless; his mission to keep a straight face and tone in light of this amateurish production was more difficult than any he had on the Mission: Impossible series. The "scientific experts" he interviews look like they got their academic degrees from a box of Cracker Jack.Check your belief/skepticism at the door; opinions on the existence of the creatures have nothing at all to do with experiencing this film. This one is just for fun, to laugh at the shoddy production techniques. The film takes itself way too seriously, with various lines of "testimony" that are fun to imitate, and sequences, such as the guy "psychromitizing" a box to discover its contents (um, why not just open it?), which make you laugh so hard you miss half of it. It gets a grade 7 on its laugh value alone.

I recorded this movie off of TBS years ago & have just about worn out the tape from watching it over & over again. It covers just about everything you want to know about Bigfoot up until 1975. I would love to see Peter Graves do an updated version with all of the new info that has come out in the past 30 years. The Patterson Film is always the best part of any Bigfoot documentary. Even in 2005 there is nobody that has been able to prove that the film is a fake. I really don't see how anybody can think that it is a man in a monkey suit on that film. There is no way on God's green earth that somebody could have done that good of a job making a suit like that in 1967. Also, hoaxes are really hard to keep up for long periods of time because somebody usually gets loose lipped. Patterson died in '72 & swore on his death bed that the film was real. Bob Gimlin has said that he hasn't made a dime off of the film so if it was a fake, you would think that he would blow the whistle & then collect a ton of money going on the talk show circuit. Then there would be the guy who "played" Bigfoot. Bob Heironimus has said that he was the guy in the suit & was paid $1,000 to do it but never received his money so he started telling people around Yakima, Washington that he was Bigfoot. Until either Bob Gimlin says it was a fake or someone finds the "suit", I will always believe that that film is real.

I remember watching this as a kid back in the late 70's and early 80's. As a child I wanted to believe that bigfoot existed and so I bought into all the "supposed" evidence that this documentary brought out. In 1985 I taped this show off of late night tv. The picture is pretty bad, not due to the age of the tape but the condition of the film when it was broadcast. The colors are very muted, everything seems to have a green tint to it and most colors are not identifiable. About once a year I still watch this show. It brings back memories.However, when I now watch this film I can't help but to chuckle at the so called "evidence" that is displayed. Most of it is open to interpretation and not concrete proof and some of it has been, evidently, proven a hoax since this film was released. I believe most of the so called witnesses either were out and out lying to the interviewers so that they could get their 15 minutes of fame or they so wanted to believe in bigfoot that they convinced themselves that what they saw was a bigfoot. In many ways it's like those who believe they have come in contact with aliens or seen a space ship. Have you ever noticed that most of us never see an alien or space ship but those who have seen one of them once have usually seen one of them more than once. What I enjoy most about this film is Peter Graves interviews and narration. If you are able to view this film watch and listen to Peter Graves as he creates a fact out of a thin air. For example, Mr. Graves will ask a person who has witnessed a bigfoot sighting about their experience and then he will make a statement of fact something like this: "...now that we've established that bigfoot does exist..." and then he'll move on to his next point. In other words he takes an unverifiable event and treats it as fact. Now, as a 33 year old adult, I can't help but to chuckle at how this film attempts to sway the viewers opinion on the existence of bigfoot. This so called documentary does try to appear unbiased by interviewing professors and experts in various fields some of which believe in bigfoot and some that do not. Again, this is not what it appears. Watch how the comparisons are made. Peter Graves usually asks someone who believes in bigfoot to explain why he believes and then he asks another person why he doesn't. Once the person who does not believe gives his reasons Mr. Graves goes back to the first person and gives him a chance to refute what the person who does not believe in bigfoot has said but Mr. Graves never gives the person who does not believe in bigfoot a chance to respond to the first persons refute. Thus the person who believes in bigfoot gets the first and last word.For some reason I still enjoy this film. I guess I don't really believe in Bigfoot or the Lock Ness monster anymore. With today's technology I think we would have more concrete proof that these two entities exist. That being said this documentary is fun to watch. It's kind of like Santa Claus for an adult. You no longer believe but it's still fun to read or watch the stories and remember when you did believe! Not that it will happen anytime soon but I do wish they would release this film in DVD form.

This is hands down the best documentary I've ever seen on the subject of Bigfoot, Nessie and the Yeti. It isn't like the more recent ones that say the Patterson film was a guy in a monkey suit, without explaining how the tracks of the creature in the film clearly showed it to have weighed almost a thousand pounds! (I guess that little discrepancy didnt need explaining) Anyway, if your interested in the subject at all and you can find this movie its a very good film and I highly recommend it.