Sasquatch Sunset is probably going to divide a lot of audiences. Myself? Well, I honestly don’t know what to make of it. This is a movie about sasquatches . . . which don’t exist. Or do they? That’s hardly the point as one Bigfoot family gets their story of survival told.
Specifically, the camera follows one family of sasquatches in the wild for about a year. As far as concepts go, this sounds pretty cool. The movie accepts sasquatches are real and, just for shits and giggles, gives us a front row seat on what it is like to be one . . . or at least be a casual observer in this family.
But Harry And The Hendersons this is not.
Writer/director brothers David and Nathan Zellner have put together a movie which feels very real as far as nature documentaries go, yet combines that with an idea that’s far too goofy to be mistaken as the real thing.
But it works to create a soul-stirring experience . . . if you can suspend your disbelief and swallow your pride a bit. It turns out, this family has a story to tell.
Starring Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg, Christophe Zajac-Denek, and Nathan Zellner, Sasquatch Sunset is at times on point with its poignancy and, thanks to a whole lot of absurdist humor, a complete farce which will certainly turn off a lot of people. That’s sort of the point, I think.
Few are going to know what to do with it, though. For me, what started as a toss up has landed with a solid 4 out of 5. On one side, you have a movie centered about bigfoots fucking in the woods and shitting on hot stretches of road in protest of our dominance and, on the other side, you have a thoroughly engrossing film about creatures fighting for survival in a world which is constantly changing.
At its best, Sasquatch Sunset is a series of vignettes about this family’s life in the woods and misty forests of the United States. You will care about them and what happens to them. This is a credit to the team involved. At its worst, the film is an endurance on how many fart and sex jokes you can tolerate without a story involved. Character development? Forget about it. But, see, that’s too harsh.
Because, through all the crotch sniffing and backdoor play, emerges the humanity of these sasquatches. Even the audience begins to care for them and their survival.
This is a tragic world they inhabit and it is brutally unkind to them, too. While the film is wordless, the emotion felt is real and, quite honestly, that fact alone is hard to argue with when it comes to the film being successful. I mean, it shouldn’t work, but like I said before, the film works to create a level of concern that might, at first, seem unnatural given that these creatures remain a part of our mythology and not rooted in fact.
Sasquatch Sunset is a wonder. It is beautifully lensed by cinematographer Mikie Gioulakis and creates a moody look into the lives of these silly sasquatches, yet you will probably come out of the film a better human than you were before the opening credits rolled. And that’s saying something about the power of film, right?
The film is being released by Bleecker Street and is currently playing.
MPAA Rating: R.
Runtime: 89 mins
Director: David Zellner; Nathan Zellner
Writer: David Zellner
Cast: Jesse Eisenberg; Riley Keough; Christophe Zajac-Denek
Genre: Action | Adventure | Comedy
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Memorable Movie Quote:
Distributor: Bleeker Street
Official Site: https://www.sasquatchsunset.film/
Release Date: April 19, 2024
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: A year in the life of a unique family. It captures the daily life of the Sasquatch with a level of detail and rigor that is simply unforgettable.
