Sasquatch Sunset

“Hwoop!”

The Zellner brothers give Bigfoot their offbeat treatment in 2024’s Sasquatch Sunset. Written and co-directed by David Zellner, the film follows the lives of four Sasquatch over the course of a year. It’s a lot like watching a ninety-minute version of Wild America without Marty Stouffer narrating the action. There is also a lot of absurd and ridiculous humor thrown into the film as well, and it can be off-putting at times.

The film stars Nathan Zellner as (what I have dubbed) the Alpha Male Sasquatch, Riley Keough as the Female Sasquatch, Jesse Eisenberg as the Beta Male Sasquatch, and Christophe Zajac-Denec as the Young Sasquatch. We get to see them live their lives, from the mundane to the silly to the dangerous, across the four seasons beginning with spring and ending with winter. Had the film made a decision to be either an adult comedy featuring Sasquatch or a dramatic nature film instead of attempting to fuse the two styles together, it probably would have been a great film. The film features amazing emotionally-charged moments of beauty, suspense, and wonder, and a smattering of silly, sometimes vulgar comedic moments that derail the film. I couldn’t settle into any specific rhythm with this movie. The cinematography and music are ridiculously beautiful and lift the film to a higher level.

The actors did an amazing job in this film. I genuinely felt for these characters as they experienced a wide range of emotions and dealt with a number of situations, from funny to terrifying. Riley Keough truly shined in this film as the female Sasquatch. Much like Kevin Peter Hall in Harry And The Hendersons, Keough let the audience know what she was feeling and thinking with her eyes in brilliant fashion. As for the three males, they all did excellent jobs, although they were often sidelined by comedic moments featuring cryptid erections and sophomoric humor. When I say cryptid erections, I mean it. There are Sasquatch penises throughout this film and a number of attempts by the two older males to have intercourse with the female.

The creature behavior in the film leans heavy toward chimpanzee behavior, which was a bit of a letdown for me considering how much I love Bigfoot and cryptids in general. The Sasquatch fling their poop, urinate with excitement, and bounce around a lot like chimps in the film. They do wood knocks and whoops like Bigfoot is believed to in the wild, but I did not like the chimpanzee actions. They also exhibit some human behaviors, primarily used for humor in the film.

As far as the creature costumes go, they are nearly perfect. The creatures don’t look like people in suits for the most part. The only shortcoming in my opinion is with the creature feet. The toes are one molded piece and look very fake. Other than that, however, the rest of the costumes look amazing.

True believers and fans of Bigfoot may be turned off by the behaviors of the creatures in this film. The absurd and gross-out humor may be too much for some viewers to stomach (although there wasn’t anything worth leaving the film for as many news releases claim in my opinion), but the beautiful moments in the film far outweigh these brief moments of sophomoric humor. Is it worth seeing in the theater? Maybe, but this film definitely isn’t for everyone. I enjoyed it and feel like I didn’t waste my time in the theater, but I can definitely see some folks walking out at the end of the movie thinking, “What in the heck did I just watch?”

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