Whether you believe in Bigfoot or not, you cannot deny that he is excellent at picking beautiful real estate to call home. That’s one of the highlights of Small Town Monsters’ 2022 documentary, On The Trail Of Bigfoot: Last Frontier. Written and directed by Seth Breedlove, this documentary features breathtaking visuals and bone-chilling eyewitness interviews about my favorite cryptid in Alaska. The film opens with a young man explaining his sighting and then goes on to uncover more exciting and creepy interviews with a number of people, some brought nearly to tears as they describe their encounters.
Some of the best segments of this film involve the tales told by Native Americans and discussions about their beliefs that were written off as myth by European settlers in the area. The Natives recount stories about not going into the woods after dark, not following whistles in the forest, and ignoring the cries of a child or baby in the forest because something sinister actually awaits them. We also learn about Otter Man and other beings as well. The film closes with a group of people spending time in a remote cabin where activity is said to be particularly high.
If you’re looking for fuzzy photos or blurry video of Sasquatch tromping through the snow, you won’t find it here. Breedlove instead keeps his focus on the stories of witnesses and laces them together with beautiful cinematography and the occasional CGI rendering of Bigfoot. In all honesty, the CGI creatures could have been left out of this production. The visuals alone are worth watching this film and so are the interviews.
Seth Breedlove.
Be sure to check out On The Trail Of Bigfoot: Last Frontier. You won’t regret it. If you are interested in Small Town Monsters, be sure to click here and take a look at their latest Kickstarter, previous projects, their online store, and more.
Thanks for checking out my post. See you again real soon!
Bigfoot is out there…..you better watch your back!
Well, it’s time to make a pretty big announcement! Yours truly and Pop Ninja Podcast host, Patrick Bennett, have set out to watch ALL of the Bigfoot films that are out there in the wild. As we watch them, we’ll review them and share our thoughts on the films on the Filmsquatch Podcast! We will be watching the good Bigfoot films, the bad Bigfoot films, and a few films that we’d probably love to forget as well. Our first episode debuts today and you can find a link to the episode here.
The first film that we are taking a look at is a personal favorite of mine. We’ll be talking about Abominable starring Matt McCoy and Haley Joel! I’ve actually blogged about this film way back in 2017 during that year’s Thirty-One Days O’Horror and you can check that out here. This film also co-stars Tiffany Shepis, who was supposed to be in attendance at the Houston Horror Film Festival later this month but recently cancelled. I hope to get to talk with her one day and mention the podcast to her. Hopefully she’ll check it out! We have plenty of other films waiting in the wings, but be sure to us know if there are any Bigfoot related flicks that you want us to check out and we’ll get them on the pod!
I hope that all of you will take a look at this new and exciting podcast that Patrick and I have started. Don’t worry, I’ll still be very active on this blog and will still be providing reviews of films, books, movies, and more right here!
On Saturday, June 18th, myself and a friend attended the Fouke Monster Festival. Not only does this festival celebrate the legendary Fouke Monster, it celebrates all things Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, Booger, and pretty much anything else that falls into the field of cryptozoology. It’s also a celebration of the town of Fouke, Arkansas, its people, and the places surrounding it that make this festival so much more than just another Bigfoot convention.
It took us awhile to get into the community center where the festival was held. Admission, even for those that preregistered, was slow, but the festival adjusted its schedule and made sure that everyone got their dollar’s worth at the event. A welcome message was given by Lyle Blackburn, one of my favorite researchers in the field of cryptozoology. Then the mayor of Fouke, Terry Purvis, said a few kind words (and jokingly warned all of us that the Boggy Creek highway sign better stay put) before a day’s worth of panelists gave presentations to the crowd.
Marvin Leeper started off the presentations by recounting stories centered around The Legend of Boggy Creek. My favorite story that he told was of his own high school where the kids were excited to see the film until one of their teachers told them that it was about Boggy Creek in Arkansas and not Boggy Creek in Oklahoma to which one of the students replied loudly, “Well….Hell.”
Leeper was followed by Chester Moore, Ken Gerhard, and Lyle Blackburn. While I enjoyed all of their presentations, Ken Gerhard’s panel on the Minnesota Iceman grabbed my attention. Prior to this event I was not aware of the Iceman nor did I know of its ties to Walter Mondale and Jimmy Stewart. It was an interesting talk and I hope to catch Gerhard at another event in the near future.
I didn’t get to listen to all of Lyle Blackburn’s presentation because I was scheduled to take a tour of Fouke hosted by Craig Woolheater, but I did talk to Lyle at his table and purchased his Momo book and had it and my copy of his Boggy Creek Casebook autographed. I thanked Lyle for answering my question about hurricanes and Sasquatch sightings on his podcast, Monstro Bizarro, which I highly recommend. He was an extremely nice guy and an all around cool dude. Be sure to check out his website for information on upcoming appearances, to purchase his books and other items, and to check out his podcast and his band, Ghoultown.
The highlight of the Fouke Monster Festival for me was the actual tour of the Fouke area. Prior to the festival, my experiences in Fouke began and ended at the Monster Mart. Don’t get me wrong, the Monster Mart is a definite must see (I visited three times while at the festival), but it is only a small portion of the legend of Boggy Creek. To get a better perspective on the events surrounding the film and the Fouke Monster itself, I highly recommend taking a tour of key sites in the area. I got to see where Boggy Creek begins (pictured above) and a number of the sites where sightings and encounters occurred not only in the film, but over the entire history of Fouke. It was an excellent tour and if you attend the festival in the future, I highly recommend taking advantage of this great tour.
Of course, no trip to Fouke is complete without a visit to the Monster Mart. Every single time that I have visited the Monster Mart, they’ve added something new to their growing Boggy Creek exhibit. I love this place. I love Fouke, Arkansas. I love the Fouke Monster Festival. Check it out for yourself!
Below is a gallery featuring photos from the driving tour of Fouke, a few more shots from the festival, and photos from the Monster Mart.
Thanks for checking out my review of the Fouke Monster Festival. If you visit the festival or just happen to be driving near the area, swing by the Monster Mart for some awesome Boggy Creek souvenirs and a great exhibit and be sure to visit Allen’s Burger Center for some home style hamburgers and other delicious treats! Oh, and the festival also celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of The Legend Of Boggy Creek. I might just be revisiting that film in a couple of months!
A Serious And Entertaining Look At The World Of Bigfoot
I love Bigfoot. I first fell in love with the big guy as a child when I saw television shows such as In Search Of…, documentaries, and many, many (usually bad) movies about him, the Abominable Snowman, and other cryptids. Specifically, the movie that really sparked my interest in Bigfoot was Boggy Creek II: And The Legend Continues. Most Bigfoot enthusiasts and Squatchers reference 1972’s The Legend of Boggy Creek as the film that struck home for them, but its official 1985 sequel was the first cryptid film that I ever saw in a theater and I was hooked. I was nine years old at the time and decided that I wanted to grow up to find Sasquatch. I haven’t found him yet.
Wild Thing Podcast logo taken from the website.
Despite being unsuccessful in finding Bigfoot, I’ve remained a huge fan. I read books on Sasquatch, follow a number of Bigfoot research groups and individuals on the web, and watch television programs on the subject of Bigfoot such as Finding Bigfoot. In the last few weeks, I’ve been listening to podcasts about cryptozoology. One of the podcasts, Sasquatch Tracks, turned me on to another podcast, Wild Thing. I highly recommend Sasquatch Tracks and I’ll blog about them in another post, but for now I want to focus on Wild Thing hosted by Laura Krantz.
Photo of Wild Thing host Laura Krantz by Kelsey Ray (from the LA Times article).
Wild Thing is a great podcast. All of the episodes clock in under an hour (usually thirty to forty minutes) and feature Krantz, a distant cousin of Sasquatch legend anthropologist Grover Krantz. While she doesn’t necessarily believe in Bigfoot, she does want to learn about the hunt for the creature and those individuals in pursuit of the legend. That’s what separates this particular podcast from the others. Krantz treats the subject with dignity and respects all of those that she interviews. She goes on a hunt, talks with a number of well known and not-so-well-known Bigfooters, scientists, and individuals and even gets some DNA samples tested. She does this not to ridicule anyone or to prove that Bigfoot exists. She does it simply to learn about the wild world of Bigfoot.
The hunter becomes the hunted! Photo taken from Anchor Blog.
Krantz does inject some humor throughout each episode. Again, it doesn’t make light of the subject or of any of the people involved, it just adds more appeal to the podcast as a whole. Some of the topics covered in Wild Thing include Grover Krantz, Peter Byrne, the Woo, evidence collection, people that profit off of Bigfoot, and many other wonderfully cryptid things.
The first season is nine episodes long with a few bonus episodes thrown in for good measure. There’s also a second season of Wild Thing that focuses on UFOs, aliens, and strange things in the nighttime sky. I haven’t listened to that season yet, but I will definitely check it out soon.
Season Two logo taken from the website.
If you’re interested in Bigfoot, the Yeti, or any other apelike cryptids out there and want a serious and genuine look at the people that are on the lookout for such things, give Wild Thing a listen. Let me know what you think of the podcast if you have listened to it and drop some of your favorite podcasts in the comments section!
Thanks for checking out this post. I’ll be adding more podcast posts in the near future.
Ken's Alternate Universe! 