I don't mind films about bigfoot, though they can be hard to make them compelling to watch, often due to the elusive nature of the creature. Savage: The Bigfoot Legend...Lives (also known more simply as Savage) was directed and co-written by Jordan Blum in his feature length directorial debut, and despite some generic parts managed to be better than I initially gave it credit for.
Firefighters trying to contain a fire that has broken out in Bear Valley National Park find themselves attacked by a strange creature (Jack Harrison), something that results in long time park ranger, Owen (Tony Becker) being called in to investigate. While a bigfoot creature operating in the area is said to be a legend created to entice tourists, it seems that the forest fires have riled it up and that it is actually real. With its food source being disrupted, the deadly creature has turned to human prey. Scientist Dale (Shane Callahan) meanwhile has hired local hunter, Jack Lund (Martin Kove - Once Upon a Time... in Hollywood, The Karate Kid series of films) to help him track down the beast. Their hunt leads them to Gabrielle (Anna Enger Ritch - The Haunting of Hill House TV show), a wanted criminal whose abusive partner had an unfortunate run-in with the creature.
It appeared to begin with that this horror might be too middle of the road for me. It had a series of generic feeling characters, and a general look to the film that did little to garner excitement. It picked up thankfully, and that was down to several factors. It took a while to like the character of Owen, he was one of the more generic and predictable people, though as the most noble of the protagonists he had some moments. You could almost call Dale and Jack the antagonists here, were not the bigfoot creature a legitimate threat to everyone's safety. Dale is at best a neutral character, ridiculed his whole life due to his belief in the creature, he is obsessed with finding it. While a bit out of his depth, he has courage, at one point even the internal organs of a victim of the beast falling onto him barely fazes him. A better route to go down than having him as a more expectedly cowardly character. Jack was another decent one, he was more villainous, with his aim to kill the beast, but a mid-film flashback shines some light on his personal reasons for wanting it dead. Gabrielle was fine, the character didn't stand out much, but she was there for a reason and was utilised well.
I was impressed with the bigfoot creature itself. Sure, it never looks particularly convincing when it is shown full on screen, but it still gelt like a genuine threat. It has some actually great scenes, with it bounding along on all fours, and able to swiftly clamber up trees. I also loved the moments when victims are suddenly thrown up into the sky, or dragged off camera. There was more violence than I had anticipated, with severed heads, and a decent amount of blood thrown in. The only notable low budget effect came unfortunately in the final act, somewhat dampening what should have been an epic finale.
While the characters are ones you would have seen in plenty other films, I did come to enjoy some of them, in particular I loved the relationship between Dale and Jack. It made them more than stereotypes, and gave them a decent developmental path to go down. It was wise to sparsely show the bigfoot but on the whole the design for it was good. I fully expected to find this a slow film to get through, but to its credit I never once found myself getting bored. Savage: The Bigfoot Legend...Lives came to EST/VOD/SVOD Digital platforms on 28th November of last year, and come to AVOD on 1st January.
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