Director: Corey Grant
Starring: Drew Rausch, Rich McDonald, Asheey Wood Garcia, Noah Weisberg, Frank Ashmore, Japheth Gordon .USA. 1h 30m
There has always been a lot to love and hate about this spirited movie. It attempts to open up new possibilities about the Bigfoot, looking at some of the newer theories and along the way it attempts to answer the popular questions, like why don’t we find more bigfoot bodies?. Despite bringing new ideas from conspiracy forums to the big screen, it fails to bring a lot of new ideas to this screen and falls into trope island with annoying characters and expresses some of the worst features of Found Footage. AND despite all of this it has to be seen and is often enjoyed.
American born director, Corey Grant attempts to build a plausible story of a paranormal reality show that goes down in flames after being outed for its numerous Hoaxes. The presenter ends up in a psych ward with a career in tatters, his silver lining comes in the guise of a hunter who claims to have the body of a dead Sasquasch. Heading out to the California Lost Coast with a skeletal crew, and the aim to investigate the remarkable find thus regaining their credibility.
It Doesn’t Like Being Called a Hoax
The team head out to the hunters cabin, a messy place which is fortified with electric fencing and loaded with guns and ammo. The hunter is a curious character and obviously hiding something… The crew seem fairly clueless while investigating their breakthrough story, it’s hard to see how they had such a huge show in the past? When faced with “real” evidence they seem to fall apart. Slowly as they probe the forest and question the nervous hunter, there’s a sense that bigfoot isn’t the enemy and might be hiding from something else in the foods, something which if he’s afraid of then the crew should be terrified of…
Bigfoot is hiding but not from us..
Bigfoot is a huge subgenre of Found Footage so it’s a bit of a let down that Lost Coast Tapes doesn’t strive to be something apart from them other than in concept, as it has a really intriguing storyline and set up with makes it alluring, but so damned hard to watch. There are moments when the team stop running around screaming like pretentious idiots and the plot finally gets going, then the film gradually grows to be incredibly chilling and becomes a psychologically terrifying experience, but it waits too long before really getting to the point, it would have been a much better idea to get there and try and hold that tension.
Bigfoot lost coast tapes is influenced by modern books and investigation of bigfoot that often bring in other otherworldly experiences, like aliens and strange rituals. It doesn’t fit the found footage style as much as others as the element that makes it watchable is the highstrangeess and could have been elevated with bringing in a better aesthetic and atmosphere. The effects are simple and effective though, hitting its audience with something difference and the crew hang about waiting for the money shot. Lacking in the humane and thinking departments it just feels as bit cheesy more than terrifying until that ultra spooky ending.
Rating: 4/10
Related: Exists (2014), Evidence (2012), Willow Creek (2013)
Lists: A-Z of Bigfoot
Article: The AOFA Short Introduction and History of Bigfoot and B Movies
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