At the start of this movie, Peter Graves looks right at the camera and totally bullshits you: “Scientists representing the world’s most foremost research centers took part in the examination of the evidence. The facts that will be presented are true. This may be the most startling film you’ll ever see.”

Get ready for another piece of Sunn Classic Pictures magic. Yes, the same people who forced you to watch Chariots of the Gods and Hangar 18. This one reached an even bigger audience thanks to being broadcast in prime time on NBC.

Director Robert Guenette, according to Wikipedia, “was an American film producer, screenwriter, film director, television director and television producer, recipient of the Directors Guild of America Award. Guenette is considered as one of the first documentary directors to introduce the “newsreel style” in documentaries. He and his son, Mark, were co-founders of the International Documentary Association.”

Now I bet you $3 that Mark Guenette or someone else in the family wrote this Wiki page, because we’re also talking about the same dude who directed the movie that gave me nightmares every time HBO aired it (which is to say, nearly every afternoon for three years) The Man Who Saw Tomorrow.

From Bigfoot to the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti and, well, that’s it — this movie is a mix of dramatic reenactments and Peter Graves going all over the world to get the story. It’s like no one told the future host of A&E’s Biography that he could simply do all his narration from the studio.

This is a movie replete with lie detectors, hypnosis, the Patterson-Gimlin footage, Bigfoot hunters, blurry photos and incredulous scientists forced to debate the existence of monsters with Jim Phelps from Mission: Impossible. In one of these instances, Graves wonders why the cops are good with verbal statements and scientists aren’t. The incredulous scientist responds with the simple fact that we know humans exist so it’s simple to believe the things they say. I was waiting for Graves to say, well, you I believe that my brother is The Thing.

To you kids with your streaming channels and cable TV, I opine that this movie was once awesome. We had to go to the theaters to see ridiculous stuff like this. There wasn’t an entire channel or ten devoted to it. In the 1970’s, we took what we could get and we liked it!

You can grab this at Amazon.