Bigfoot vs. Zombies (2016)

Bigfoot month continues with this odd mashup from director Mark Polonia, who was also responsible for Frozen Sasquatch which I also covered for this marathon, you can find that review here. This one was made a couple of years earlier than that movie, so I suppose he had more Bigfoot fun to get out of his system.

The story here follows a varied group of characters including a nature photographer, some delivery men, a security guard and other employees at a body farm. If you don’t know what that it a body farm is a place where donated corpses are left in different environments to decay for pathologists in training to study so that they can help solve crimes. There are a lot of them lying around the property, which makes for some zombie fun. The head scientist/doctor that runs the facility has been working on a chemical to help decay them quicker so that he can charge more for his services because they would need more bodies that his clients would have to pay for. This backfires when his experiments reanimate the dead and they start to eat the living!

That isn’t the only storyline here. I mean Bigfoot is in the title so that shouldn’t be any surprise. The big fella shows up and sees the zombies in action before anyone else does. When they attack a lady that he apparently likes he jumps in to save the day. Bigfoot vs. Zombies… see where they got the title? After some fighting and head smashing our survivors make their escape, though sadly they have to leave Bigfoot behind because he just doesn’t belong in our world.

The Bigfoot

Much like my review for Frozen Sasquatch I have to warn you that this is a super low budget movie, so you need to manage your expectations. But like that movie this is a decent way to kill some time. Though here the action is even tighter than with Bigfoot vs Zombies clocking in a seventy-five minutes. This is because the movie gets right to the good stuff and never lets up. There always is something interesting happening on the screen, whether it be Bigfoot, zombies, or some of the funnier characters. Not a dull moment to be had here. If you are a frequent reader of my reviews (hey that could happen!) you might remember my mantra for indy filmmakers. I can forgive bad special effects, acting, lighting, and sound due to lack of budget, but there is no excuse for a lousy script. Between the pacing, the interesting setting of the body farm, and mashing up Bigfoot and the walking dead this is a great bit of writing that in turn makes Bigfoot vs. Zombies a fun watch.

The zombies... the movie delivers what it promises!

The special effects work ranges from the basic grey zombies familiar to fans of the sixties and early seventies zombie movies to mediocre rubber masks. The kills are all rather tame with anything interesting happening off screen. Both of these are clearly due to not having the funds or time to get much more detailed with the special effects. Bigfoot is a Halloween costume level of ape suit. But I’m not going to complain because I’m watching a low budget movie that is well shot and again has an interesting script. Remember when I keep saying that if you have a decent story I’m all in and willing to forgive other deficiencies? Well here is the perfect example.

Is Bigfoot vs. Zombies a great movie? Not at all, but did you read the title? This is exactly what I want when I see a low budget flick with such a goofy moniker. I like this kind of movie when it is done well and here it is done very well. I recommend it.

© Copyright 2019 John Shatzer