Big Legend (2018)

The Bigfoot marathon continues. This time around I have another low budget independent flick to talk about, Big Legend. This one is a bit different as it serves as both a standalone movie as well as a possible start of a franchise of monster hunter flicks. Time to see how well they did.

This movie starts out with a couple heading off into the wilderness around Mount St. Helens to go camping. They are clearly in love and he has a ring. This isn’t going to end well, you have to know that. Well sure enough after proposing and declaring that he will never let anything happen to her something comes out of the woods and takes her away. The action moves to a year later when our lead, Tyler, gets out of a mental facility. No one believed him about the creature coming out of the woods, so they locked him up. Eventually he told them what they wanted to hear and is now going to head back into the woods for some revenge!

Tyler runs into another man, Eli, and go hunting for the beast together. They find what they are looking for, but it might be more than they can handle. The rest of the movie is a very tight and tense fight between man and beast. Along the way Tyler finds some answers about his lost fiancé and learns more about the world and the secrets it contains. When the movie ends we meet Jackson Wells, played by Lance Henriksen, who lets him in on the fact that monsters are real, not just Bigfoot, and they must be dealt with.

I really dig this movie. The plot is simple and straightforward. Tyler loses his girl to the monster and goes hunting it after no one believes him. They take just enough time to show that they were in love to justify the actions of the character and then get him back to the hunt. What could have been a very slow wandering around the woods movie is kept interesting by quick glimpses of the creature stalking Tyler. This isn’t only done with “monster” vision as we see the creature looking at him but is also accomplished by us catching glimpses of it behind him. They really did a great job of keeping things creepy. The addition of the character Eli and his backstory gives the plot some extra stuff to work with and fills out the movie so that it never drags. Eli is a bit of a mystery and that is fun.

Most of the movie they keep the creature in the shadows or barely seen in quick cuts. When we finally do see it the makeup looks decent. While they never call it a Bigfoot or Sasquatch this is clearly what it is supposed to be. Though I get them avoiding the name because they are trying to build some sort of unique world in which to tell their own monster stories. If they are as good as Big Legend I’m all for it! There aren’t any kills on screen in the movie. Though we do get a gnarly looking broken leg and a gooey pit of body parts. As a gore hound I was satisfied with that.

I already told you that I like the movie so clearly, I’m going to recommend it. Go out and buy, stream, or rent a copy. This is the only way we will get some sequels and I want to see them. If we don’t support filmmakers like this then all we will get is the PG-13 crap flicks and nobody wants that.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer