Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie

Directed and produced by Jay Delaney. Starring Dallas Gilbert and Wayne Burton.

Common People Productions - 2008

Three and a Half Stars of Review! *** 1/2

Portsmouth, Ohio, like many rural towns, is dissected by empty stretches of road that seem to run endlessly in either direction. A place made up of browns and grays, thick clumps of dead earth, and abandoned factories that once were a life blood, but now sit empty, monuments to a certain futility that comes with progress. It feels more like a miasma than a place to call home, but here lives Dallas and Wayne; the subjects of “Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie,” and here is where they have lived their entire lives.

Dallas, the more congenial of the two, likes to sing though he battles emphysema, and his wife of 21 years collects Elvis memorabilia. Wayne also collects: 8 track players, knives, religious art, but unlike Dallas he is far more morose. He is a man with deeply ingrained feelings of inadequacy. Much of the time we spend alone with Wayne is in pity and self abuse. “Don't be like me”, he tells us on more than one occasion.

Despite their disparate personalities the two men are best friends and colleagues. They have been on a quest for many years to prove the existence of Bigfoot, and much of their free time is spent in that pursuit. What drives them is obvious from the start. For Wayne it's more tangible things like fame and fortune. At one point he informs us that he has spent the last three years hauling jugs of water to and from his relatives houses just so he and his wife can shower and wash dishes. He has been unable to afford the sixteen-hundred dollars it would cost to fix his plumbing.

For Dallas it is something more than that. He believes that he is special. Connected in a way that most can never relate to. Dallas understands the Bigfoot on a spiritual level or at least that's what he says. He makes a lot of audacious claims (his skull is partly made of animal bones or that his DNA is supposedly part sheep are just two), and some of them taxed the better parts of my nature. It's not that I believe in what Dallas says; it's that I want to believe that he believes.

Of course Dallas isn't the only one that feels the same. Most of the people that he's close to do as well. Especially those in their Bigfoot research group. What little time we have among the mostly blurred out faces is spent in praise of Dallas and his ethereal talents. Though the camera does capture a lecture given by one member who claims that the reason we never find Bigfoot tracks in the snow is that not only are they telepathic (an accepted fact), but they may also be able to fly.

Thankfully these men and women are portrayed with a certain gentle honesty. Perhaps they are not all that well educated, and they don't exactly seem to be people of means, but so what? At its core this really isn't a club for Bigfoot enthusiasts. It's a support group.

Later a little drama does crop up in the form of a foul mouthed radio host. One of those late night conspiracy theorists whose primary audience probably tunes in more for the amusement factor. He claims to be there in support of Dallas, but after the first night when he senses a meal ticket he dumps him in hopes of capturing a Bigfoot of his own.

What can be learned from all this? Not much I suppose. It's a character study, and why not? Are Dallas and Wayne not worthy of our sympathies, our affection, and our interest? They are people after all, and God did my heart bleed for them. You might be tempted to look down on Dallas, Wayne, and the people that surround them, but consider when Dallas claims that Bigfoot has the ability to look into our hearts and know our intentions. What would he find in your heart?

This film is available to watch instantly for Netflix subscribers.