After The Thing and Prince of Darkness, this is the third and final part of John Carpenter’s  Apocalypse Trilogy. It’s a film that plays with the very notion of reality, how fictional characters perceive themselves within a narrative and issues of creation itself. It’s a natural next step after Prince of Darkness, playing with many of the same themes.

The film starts with a narrative device that will be familiar to readers of H.P. Lovecraft, as Dr. Wrenn (David Warner, The Omen, From Beyond the Grave) visits a patient in a psychiatric hospital who has written all over the walls and himself, covering them with crosses.

John Trent (Sam Neill, Jurassic Park) is an insurance investigator who can smell out a co like no one else. We’re shown an example in the beginning, as he breaks down a scam being perpetrated by a business owner (Carpenter regular Peter Jason). Later, he meets with the owner of an insurance company (Bernie Casey, Gargoyles) who gives him a new case: investigating a claim made by Arcane Publishing that their biggest selling author, Sutter Cane, has disappeared.

Just then, a man attacks them with an axe. He stops to ask Trent, “Do you read Sutter Cane?” The police shoot him and later, we learn that this man was Cane’s agent, who was so influenced by reading his latest manuscript that he killed his entire family.

Trent meets Arcand Publishing owner Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston!) who asks him to look into the disappearance with the help of Cane’s editor, Linda Styles (Julie Carmen, Fright Night Part 2). As he begins to read Cane’s books, Trent learns that his readers have been known to suffer from disorientation, memory loss and paranoia first-hand.

He’s also convinced that this disappearance is a publicity stunt. Yet he spends plenty of time tearing apart Cane’s book covers, which form the state of New Hampshire and mark Hobbs End, the location for many of Cane’s stories — which is quite like Castle Rock in Stephen King’s tales.

As they travel to the fictional town, Linda begins to see things and they both lose track of day and night. Once in the town, the people and landmarks are exactly as they appeared in the written word. Trent believes this is still a publicity stunt. Linda comes clean and says that the disappearance started as a stunt, but no one can find Cane. Everything happened from now on is real, she claims.

For example, inside their hotel room, Trent claims there should be a black church out the window. The only problem is that he didn’t read the books closely enough. While the first window he opens reveals nothing, that evil cathedral is revealed when he opens the window that faces the east.

As they travel to the church, an army of black dogs emerges to defend Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow, Dune, The Keep) who sits inside. Linda confronts him, but simply being exposed to his final novel, In the Mouth of Madness, drives her insane.

The fabric of reality has begun to tear asunder. A man (former pro wrestler Wilhelm von Homburg who played Viggo in Ghostbusters 2 who led an insane and demented life) tells Trent that Cane has his son and he can no longer save him. His own daughter attacked him and he could do nothing to stop her. He wishes that he could tell him more, but this is how Cane wrote him. With that sentence hanging in the ether, the man blows his brains out with a shotgun.

The townspeople have become monsters and the story beats of each of Cane’s tales have started to come true. Trent tries to drive away but keeps coming back to the center of town. He takes Linda with him, but she transforms into a monster. Finally, he crashes his car and wakes up inside the church. Cane explains to him that his stories ended up being true, an almost Bible for a new and more horrible world. As more of his readers began to believe in his stories, they raised a race of Ancient Ones from the before times. Again, this is well-trod ground for anyone that has read Lovecraft but not something that makes it to the screen that often.

Cane explains that Trent is just one of his characters and his role is to help end humanity by delivering his final story to Arcane. He then tears his face open, sending Trent to the dimension of the monsters from beyond time and space. As he runs down a long tunnel to come back to the real world, he begs Linda to come with him. She says that since she has read the whole book, she can’t.

Once Trent makes it back, he destroys the story. But once he visits Arcane, he learns that Linda never existed and the final book has already been published. In fact, they are almost done making a movie. Trent is then arrested after attacking readers of the book with an axe.

We come back to the asylum, where Dr. Wrenn laughs off the story and walks away to leave, only to have the attendant, Saperstein (John Glover, Gremlins 2) ask him, “Do you read Sutter Cane?”

Trent barely sleeps the night, convinced that people are fighting and dying outside the walls of his cell. He awakens to find the hospital and most of the city abandoned, with only the pages of Sutter Cane books left behind. A radio announces that mass murder and suicides are happening in every major city, with some people mutating into monsters.

Finally, he wanders into a theater where In the Mouth of Madness is playing. As he watches the entire movie replay, he begins to laugh hysterically before crying. He is just another character in another story, never real in the first place.

Between characters named Pickman and the closeness of Cane’s titles to Lovecraft’s (Sutter Cane’s novels have similar titles to H.P. Lovecraft stories: The Whisperer of the Dark is The Whisperer in Darkness, The Thing in the Basement is The Thing on the Doorstep and The Haunter Out of Time is almost The Haunter of the Dark or The Shadow Out of Time), this is probably the closest we’ll get to a major budget Lovecraft film that isn’t Re-Animator. All of the words read from Cane’s books are also from Lovecraft, including parts of The Rats in the Walls and The Haunter of the Dark.

Beyond that, even the town’s name — Hobb’s End — is a reference to a work that is close to the heart of Carpenter. It’s the train station where the spaceship is found in Quatermass and the Pit. And the inscription on the church, “Let these doors be sealed by our Lord God and let any who dare enter this unholy site be damned forever,” are similar to the words “Terribilis est locus iste” at France’s Rennes Le Château. In English, that should read “This place is terrible.”

Even more interesting, if you pause and read the movie poster for the movie within the movie, you’ll learn that other than the three main characters, all of the actual people who worked on the movie are listed. So is the movie real? Was Cane ever real? Was Trent just a made up character? Are we real? Is reality just an illusion?

These are some big questions. Maybe you should get the Shout! Factory blu ray or watch this on Shudder and come up with your own answers. Have you watched Sutter Cane?

Is there an actor that can save any movie for you? There is one for me: John Saxon. I have sat through many a piece of absolute shit only because Saxon shows up to be the hero of the day, even if he’s usually the villain.

TV reporter Carrie Madison (Kay Lenz, The Initiation of Sarah, House) is trying to meet with mad scientist Dr. Hartmann when she literally runs into Dan Roebuck’s (Richard Hatch, TV’s Battlestar Galactica) truck. Once they find the scientist, his machine causes them all to disappear to the parallel world of Vonya, which is populated by cavemen and the warlord Kleel (John Saxon, of course) who has plenty of Earth technology.

Director Terry Marcel also was behind the films Hawk the Slayer and Jane and the Lost City, so obviously sword, sorcery and science fiction was his bread and butter. Too bad that his bread and butter tastes so bad.

If you want to see John Saxon outact everyone around him — sadly I wish this were higher praise — and a ragtag group of aliens fight cavemen, I guess you should watch this. I can recommend several much better movies in this genre, though. That said, it’s free to watch on Amazon Prime.

Despite being direct to video releases (yes, some have had limited releases in theaters and the first was considered for theatrical release), the Puppet Master series is one that’s packed with content. Produced by Full Moon Features, the series started in 1989 with Puppet Master, which has been followed by ten sequels/prequels, a non-canon crossover with the characters of Demonic Toys, two comic book mini-series, an ongoing comic book series, toys and now, this reboot.

Opening in Postville, Texas, where that “old guy” comes into a bar where he’s been frequently upsetting the female customers. That “old guy” is Andre Toulon, the inventor of the puppets who this movie is all about and he’s played by Udo Kier, all of people. After bothering the bartender and her girlfriend, he leaves into the night, upset as they embrace and kiss.

Later that night, the girls leave the bar and discuss their future. After hearing a noise, one of them is attacked. Soon, we see Toulon lying in a basement, telling the puppets to come to him. This scene felt really disjointed — setting up the murder but not showing it actually happening. Everything jumps forward to the police investigating the crime scene, with both girls dead and small footprints running away from the car.

The police rush — with no backup or warrant — to the Toulon house, where we see Andre rise painfully and pull down a concrete pillar. They enter the house and we hear gunfire as the title card appears.

Note: the producers have stated that this film takes place in a parallel universe, which is why Andre Toulon is an evil Nazi instead of battling against the Third Reich.

Dallas, Texas. Today. Edgar (Thomas Lennon, The State, Reno 9-11 and a character actor who has shown up in plenty of films way below his talent level) is recovering from a divorce and has retreated to his childhood home to heal. There, he discovers a mint condition Blade doll in his dead brother’s room and decides to sell it at a convention that celebrates the Toulon Murders for a big profit. Joining him on the way are Markowitz (Nelson Franklin, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World) and Ashley.

They sign up for a tour of the Toulon house, led by Carol Doreski (Barbara Crampton, Re-Animator, Chopping Mall, We Are Still Here), the officer who raided the mansion thirty years ago. She explains the backstory of how Toulon began creating the puppets and where everything went wrong.

Once Toulon escaped World War 2 — his wife committed suicide at sea — he settled in this small Texas town. On the night the police were called in, they found a house of horrors, including a soundproof room where Jewish women were tortured. There are also books in the house on all manner of subjects like astrology, numerology, demonology and more, as well as books that came directly from Adolf Eichmann, the creator of the Final Solution.

Finally, Doreski shows the tour group where Toulon was shot as she finishes the tour at the mausoleum where his body lies in rest. There are rods inside the building that some feel have occult significance, but that no one can really explain.

When Edgar and Ashley — now a couple who make out at every opportunity — come back to their hotel room, his Blade doll is missing and the front desk answers back in French, saying “Remain in the shadows.” If you think things are going to get normal from here on out, well, things are only going the other way. Soon, Torch appears and makes the first two gory kills. In a world of CGI, it’s nice to see some practical effects here! The burn effects are really well done.

This isn’t a film that skimps on nudity, either. We cut right from those brutal kills to a couple in the throes of passion — including breasts against the window ala Catholic High School Girls in Trouble from The Kentucky Fried Movie. Blade soon gets involved, slicing them to ribbons, including a Pet Semetary style ankle shredding.

Say what you will about this movie, but it knows its audience. We find another convention goer watching some wrestling in his room (I recognize David Starr, which I wonder is intentional as he’s a Jewish pro wrestler). Man, I don’t want to spoil the kill that follows, but suffice to say I’ve never seen anyone urinate on a decapitated head before. Just wow. If you’re looking for the red stuff — and I guess the yellow stuff — this movie has you covered.

While Markowitz tries to get some action at the bar, Detective Brown (Michael Paré from Streets of Fire! This is the kind of casting I’d dream of if Italian exploitation movies were still being made!) shows up to investigate the missing Blade doll. Soon, he learns that everyone that brought a doll has lost them. And man do they pay. We don’t meet a single character really and get to know them, we just watch puppets decimate them. But hey — isn’t that why you’re watching this?

This movie totally needs a Joe Bob Briggs breakdown of the kills. Spinning robot fu. Intestine ripped out fu. Drill fu. Puppet abortion fu. Seriously, that last one is on the level of Joe D’Amato or Ruggero Deodato depravity.

The police make everyone leaves their rooms and gather in the lobby as multiple crime scenes appear. Can everyone survive the onslaught of Blade, Pinhead, Tunneler, Torch, Mechaniker, Happy Amphibian, Grasshüpfer, Mr. Pumper, Junior Fuhrer, Autogyro and Money Lender?

“Lots of terrible shit happens to people who don’t deserve it,” says a fan at the end of the film. “I don’t think things are fully resolved,” says our sole survivor as a TO BE CONTINUED comes up. Well, here’s to hoping!

Directed by Sonny Liguna and Tommy Wiklund (Animalistic) and written by S. Craig Zahler (Bone Tomahawk, Brawl in Cell Block 99) with credit given to Charles Band, there’s a major narrative shift that changes up this film from any that have come before. Where in the past, the puppets were created to battle the Nazis and have been taken over by whomever can command them, here they were explicitly by a Nazi to kill their enemies, like Jewish people, blacks, gay people and gypsies. Essentially, the characters that you want to cheer on are committing hate crimes. That’s a pretty big jump to make. Then again, if you see this is an exploitation film, you know that all bets are off. Creator Charles Band told Entertainment Weekly, “You’ve got to go back to what exploitation movies were 40-50 years ago. I mean, it’s hard today. There’s so much out there. We’re so jaded. I mean, television news, when something bad happens, it’s worse than most horror movies I’ve ever made: decapitations and terrorism. And, you know, what do you do to an audience that has seen it all, to get them talking? What [Cinestate] has done is gone full-on exploitation. They’ve got something going there, where there is going to be controversy.”

I’ve hinted at it before, but the Italian sleaze roots of this film run deep. So deep that Fabio Frizzi (The Beyond, Zombi, Manhattan Baby) did the score! And the role that Skeeta Jenkins plays totally feels made for Bobby Rhodes.

Band has stated that he still has plans to make his own Puppet Master movies and that Cinestate has plans to make a big budget version of Castle Freak next. Here’s hoping that movies like Trancers and Subspecies also get their shot!

Despite the changing of the series’ premise — I’ve never been a hardcore fan, so I got past this quickly — this movie is exactly what it should be. Quick, brutal and filled with the red stuff. Sure, we never find out what the hell is going on in that mausoleum. And we have no idea what happens next. But isn’t that the beauty of a fun exploitation movie? Shut your brain off and enjoy.

Disclaimer: I was sent this film by its PR team and in no way did that impact my review. Thanks!

Charlie watched her pro wrestler dad die in the ring, was raised by wrestlers and is now in the middle of an end of the world zombie extinction level event. From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl! is that kinda movie.

This movie is based on director Daniel Armstrong’s (MurderDrome) time in the video game industry, specifically a failed wrestling game project. There are a lot of shout outs to Evil Dead 2 in here, as this film aspires beyond its small budget to be an Australian Shaun of the Dead, except, you know, with pro wrestlers.

While originally shot in 2006 and 2007, the film sat on the shelf until Armstrong’s later work got known. Over the following years, attempts to finish the movie were made. At one point, the director’s car was destroyed by a drunk off-duty police officer and the insurance money was just enough to allow shooting to continue. Finally, in 2014, after the success of MurderDrome, shooting and editing were both finally finished.

This is a movie that’s not afraid to be beyond goofy and silly. It’s not perfect by any means, but it’s a fun take on the genre and most of the cast trained to be actual wrestlers, which is pretty cool. There’s plenty of gore and one scene that legitimately made me laugh when the zombie personal assistant kept trying to find the exact right pose and had to keep pulling her body into position.

Check it out for yourself on Amazon Prime.

This is the first VHS tape I ever rented. It was 1983. Prime Time Video had just opened. And the tape box promised delights we’d never dreamt of before. I was thinking this was going to be the best parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark and Mad Max. And wow, was I disappointed. But how would I feel 35 years later?

After trying to raise a Russian sub, the descendants of Atlantis attack our heroes, but they look a whole lot like punk bikers from an Italian post-apocalyptic movie. Which they totally are. Our heroes have to uncover the secret of Atlantis and stop them before they take over the world.

Christopher Connelly is Mike, our main hero. You may recognize him from Benji or TV’s Peyton Place. Or more likely, you know him from Manhattan Baby or 1990: The Bronx Warriors.

Plus, there’s Gioia Scola (Conquest), Tony King (The Toy), Stefano Mingardo (Blastfighter), George Hilton (The Case of the Bloody Iris), Ivan Rassimov (need I regale you with my love of his films?) and a young Michele Soavi before he became a director!

I’ll be super honest. This movie is a complete piece of shit. There are moments of greatness, such as whenever Crystal Skull appears or when a corpse keeps turning a jukebox off and on. I wanted to love this movie as a child and I wanted to love it even more as an adult. But sadly, that love never filled my heart.

There are people that love this film. And I get it. I like Ruggero Deodato. I just can’t get into this movie.

You can watch it for free with an Amazon Prime membership, so maybe you might have a totally different point of view!

Let’s list the reasons why this movie made it to our site:

Joe D’Amato directed it. Where do we even start with his filmography? Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals? Antropophagus? Endgame?

It’s an Italian ripoff of Conan the Barbarian, which means it’s going to be at the same time better, worse and more inventive than the movie that inspired it.

It’s written by Michele Soavi (Stagefright, The Church, The Sect, Cemetery Man)!

Once, Ator was just a baby, born with the birthmark that prophesied that he’d grow up to destroy the Spider Cult, whose leader Dakar (a pro wrestler who appeared in Titanes en el Ring against Martín Karadagian) tries to kill before he even gets out of his chainmail diapers.

Luckily, Ator is saved and grows up big, strong and weirdly in love with his sister, Sunya. It turns out that luckily, he’s adopted, so this is only morally and not biologically upsetting. His father allows them to be married, but the Spider Cult attacks the village and takes her, along with several other women.

Ator trains with Griba, the warrior who saved him as a child (he’s played by Edmund Purdom, the dean from Pieces!). What follows are pure shenanigans — Ator is kidnapped by Amazons, almost sleeps with a witch, undertakes a quest to find a shield and meets up with Roon (Sabrina Siani, Ocron from Fulci’s batshit barbarian opus Conquest), a sexy blonde thief who is in love with him.

Oh yeah! Laura Gemser, Black Emanuelle herself, shows up here too.

Ator succeeds in defeating Dakkar, only to learn that the only reason that Griba mentored him was to use him to destroy his enemy. That said, Ator defeats him too, leaving him to be eaten by the Lovecraftian-named Ancient One, a monstrous spider. But hey, Ator isn’t done yet. He kills that beast too!

Finally, learning that Roon has died, Ator and Sunya go back to their village, ready to make their incestual union a reality. Or maybe not, as she doesn’t show up in the three sequels, The Blade Master, Iron Warrior and Quest for the Magic Sword.

Ator is played by Miles O’Keefe, who started his Hollywood career in the Bo Derek vehicle Tarzan the Ape Man, a movie that Richard Harris would nearly fist fight people over if they dared to bring it up. He’s in all but the last of these films and while D’Amato praised his physique and attitude, he felt that his fighting and acting skills left something to be desired.

Ator the Fighting Eagle pretty much flies by. It does what it’s supposed to do — present magic, boobs, sorcery and swordfights — albeit in a PG-rated film. It’s anything except boring and you can check it out for yourself on Amazon Prime.

One could be cynical and point to 1981’s Galaxy of Terror as a blatant cash grab, an Alien clone that pushes itself into squeamish territory that its inspiration only hinted at. You could see it as a disgusting piece of exploitation movie making, filled with faded stars. Or you could just realize that life can be a mysterious, amazing, wonderfully rewarding experience and that a movie can start off ripping something off and become its own gloriously weird and magical thing. Obviously, I’m in the latter camp. And if you aren’t, jump off this ride to Morganthus right now, bub!

Written and directed by Bruce D. Clark and produced by Roger Corman for around $700,000, this is no big budget affair. But it’s a film that uses footage from previous Corman efforts, notably Battle Beyond the Stars, to great effect. And it’s also a proving ground for the talent that would lead the science fiction genre throughout the following decade. James Cameron is the art director, providing some intriguing sets and interesting gore replete with maggots. And of all people, the late and oh so lamented Bill Paxton served as the set decorator, previous to his career as an actor.

Galaxy begins by showing the last survivor of a downed ship being tracked down and killed as he tried to run away with what looks to be a car muffler. We learn that this is all part of a game played between Mitri and the Planet Master, who keeps his identity hidden. They speak of plans being set into motion and sending another ship, The Quest, to its doom.

The ship’s crew is led by Captain Trantor (Grace Zabriskie, Sarah Palmer of Twin Peaks, as well as The Grudge and Child’s Play 2), who has survived an epic disaster which has rendered her unstable and quite possibly a danger to her entire crew. This point is hammered home as the moment the ship is close to Morganthus, it crash lands on the planet’s surface.

Also on board are:

Alluma (Erin Moran of TV’s Happy Days and Joanie Loves Chachi), a psychic sensitive.

Team leader Baelon (Zalman King, who would go behind the camera to steam up the scream with his Red Shoe Diaries series, as well as production (and at times, direction) duties on films such as Two Moon Junction, Wild Orchid and 9 ½ Weeks), who is a complete dick to one and all.

Quuhod, a mute crewmember and master of the throwing crystal (Sid Haig, who may be my real father. Honestly, if you’re on this site and have no idea who Sid Haig is, life has led you down a dark, dismal path. I’d suggest you stop reading now and go watch Spider Baby or House of 1000 Corpses or Coffy or The Big Bird Cage and so on and so on).

Cabren, the film’s hero, who seems to be the coolest head (and best mustachioed) on the ship (Edward Albert, son of Green Acres star Eddie Albert).

Kore, the ship’s cook (Ray Walston, My Favourite Martian, Mr. Hand from Fast Times at Ridgemont High and Dr. Mnesyne from Popcorn).

Dameia (Taaffe O’Connell, New Year’s Evil), the technical officer.

Commander Ilvar (Bernard Behrens, The Changeling), the overall team leader.

Ranger, a crew member (Robert Englund, again, if you need a lesson on the importance of this fine actor, your priorities need some serious evaluation).

One by one, the team faces their own fears as they explore the planet. Those fears include all manner of gory, horrific deaths. To satisfy the demands of the film’s backers, one of those horrific moments includes a sex scene with the buxom O’Connell, but the results are probably not what any of those backers ever dreamed they wanted. Her fear of sexuality and fantasy of submitting to something more powerful than herself leads to a gigantic maggot having a prolonged, fully nude sex scene complete with simulated intercourse, as she gets covered in slime and enjoys an orgasm so great that it kills her. Seriously — this is either the scene where you wonder aloud about Galaxy of Terror’s sheer lunacy or walk out of the room in disgust. There is no middle ground.

Finally, it’s revealed that this is all a cosmic child’s game and the Master must be replaced by one of the crew. I’ll leave it up to you to watch this film and enjoy the ending for yourself.

It’s worth noting: As Alien gave way to Aliens, an alum of this film, Cameron, would be at the helm. However, there would be no giant maggots or Sid Haig dancing around in a jumpsuit. If you ask me, we’re all the worse for that.

Also known as Planet of Terrors and Mind Warp: An Infinity of Terror, Galaxy demands to be viewed. Be warned – this is exploitation filmmaking at its most exploitative. It’s a scuzzy, scummy film and may not be for all tastes.

You can watch it for free with an Amazon Prime membership or grab it from Shout! Factory.

This review originally appeared on That’s Not Current. 

What happens when roller derby girls go up against the supernatural? Well, you get this Australian movie, that’s what happens.

Cherry Skye loves roller derby. And now, she’s falling in love with Brad. But that draws the anger of his ex-girlfriend Hell Grazer, who is the meanest and dirtiest skater on the track.

Soon, the supernatural rears its ugly head — you know how these things happen — and the roller derby track has become the MurderDrome! Now, everyone that Cherry cares about is marked for death, thanks to a leather-wearing derby demon and her combination hook and cleaver.

This movie has an ultra low budget, several actors who have never acted before and surprisingly good gore. It’s the perfect film for when you’re up in the middle of the night and wonder if Australian horror movies can still be as wonderfully demented as they were in the 1980’s. This is a fun, fast ride that entertained me — well beyond my expectations. It’s cheesy, it’s ridiculous and I watched it at 4 AM.

You can check it out yourself on Amazon Prime!

A foster mother has The Premonition: her new daughter’s unstable biological mother is going to come and take her away. It comes true, so what happens next? PS – it’s beyond the power of an exorcist in only the way that an exploitation movie poster can promise.

Originally released as part of Arrow Video’s American Horror Project, this film was once titled Turtle Heaven. I watched this movie because of the always dependable Richard Lynch (Bad Dreams, Invasion U.S.A.), who plays the carnival clown boyfriend of Andrea, whose daughter Janie (Danielle Brisebois, TV’s Archie Bunker’s Place) has been adopted by the Bennett family. Oh yeah — Jeff Corey (who would go from being blacklisted to becoming the premier acting coach in Hollywood) shows up as a cop.

Two mothers — connected by the young girl they love and see as their child, as well as a psychic bond — go to war. That’s my best explanation of this very 1970’s film. But back to Richard Lynch — did you know how he got his scarred looking appearance? The hard way. In 1967, high on drugs, he set himself on fire in Central Park, burning more than 70% of his body. But after a year of recovery, he started to act.

You can watch the movie for yourself on Amazon Prime.

What is it about Western PA that leads to so many Bigfoot movies being shot here? This is at least the second in as many years, but A Wish for Giants is unlike any cryptozoological movie you’ve ever seen.

9-year old Roxie goes from a normal life to dealing with an inoperable brain tumor. While she still has time, her family connects her to the Wish Kingdom Foundation, whose job is to try and get kids’ minds off their plight by granting a wish. Roxie doesn’t just have any wish. She wants to meet Bigfoot.

Sophie (Naysa Altmeyer, the best part of this film) is the grad student who becomes obsessed with making that wish come true. Nobody understands her, including her boyfriend. Making things tougher for her is Derrick, a senator’s son who just wants to screw everything up for her. Beyond having some incredibly interesting chest hair, he’s also evil just for the sake of being evil, messing up the wish every step of the way. I wish his motivations were explaining a little better. Is he negging Sophie because he thinks she’ll sleep with him? It certainly seems that way at one point. And at others, we’re sympathetic to him because of how his father treats him. We’re so close to a real motivation for him and it’s just a little off.

The real story? The roads that Sophie must travel to try and find a real Bigfoot. She’s a true believer and perhaps that why Derrick dislikes her so much. His idea is to just put a Russian wrestler in a costume. That wouldn’t be good enough for Sophie or, more importantly, Roxie.

There are some bad line readings here and there. And some of the pathos feel piled on at some points. But to be honest, this is a pretty interesting idea for both a book and film. If it’s a little earnest, well, not every film has to packed with subtext and gore. Add in that it was shot for around $25,000 and it’s actually astounding that the film looks as good as it does.

There are also some deep cut Bigfoot facts in this film. You won’t hear this much Sasquatch info in your traditional Hollywood fare.

Want to see this for yourself? Then check out the official website. And thanks to cast and crew member Joe Fishel for sending it my way.