Ape Canyon

Ape Canyon

"Best Place To Go" is a great add to the soundtrack. Well crafted movie and fun to watch. I really enjoy how much music enhances the movie experience. I appreciate the thoughtfulness that goes into the process.

We love Bigfoot movies enough to have an entire Letterboxd list devoted to them. Ape Canyon offers something that no other film on that list does. It's a life crisis film wrapped up in a need to find a living sasquatch. Cal Piker (Jackson Trent, who also was in Bad Witch) reappears in the life of his sister Samantha (Anna Fagan) and demands that she go to Oregon with him to look for Bigfoot, a trip that he has paid for with her credit card. The trip to Ape Canyon means facing danger and being guided by the Bigfoot Investigation Organization, which starts with everyone's money being stolen and then the group left in the woods to die. Just as much a road trip and exploration of what happens when life doesn't live up to our dreams, Ape Canyon is anything but just another bigfoot movie. Joshua Land, its director, also co-directed the aforementioned Bad Witch, which also nicely sidesteps convention. I really liked how past meetings with the mysterious monster are only shown in animated form. I'm interested to see what he and screenwriter Harrison Demchick do next.

Wow! This had to be the worst movie I've ever watched. Turkey rating for sure. Terrible acting throughout the whole movie. I could've made a better movie with my own phone. Haha! You can always watch this movie, if you need a good laugh at how terrible it is............. Wow! This had to be the worst movie I've ever watched. Turkey rating for sure. Terrible acting throughout the whole movie. I could've made a better movie with my own phone. Haha! You can always watch this movie, if you need a good laugh at how terrible it is. Wow! This had to be the worst movie I've ever watched. Turkey rating for sure. Terrible acting throughout the whole movie. I could've made a better movie with my own phone. Haha! You can always watch this movie, if you need a good laugh at how terrible it is.

Finally, my hands went way up in the air as I muttered 'ENOUGH'! Cal is a young man who convinces his sister to go on a guided expedition to find big foot. There is so much that could go 'right' with this premise, however, at the half way point it was clear that Cal was an unrepentant arrogant, brainless, psycho who is totally detached from reality. It is one thing to be 'eager' to go it alone into the wilderness, what would likely be a suicide quest, and a quantum leap worse when Cal is willing become a criminal felon to continue his insane quest. Whether Cal does or does not find big foot is irrelevant when the main thrust is to convince us at every turn that Cal is one very sick young man in dire need of appropriate treatment. That being the case there was every reason to abort this utter, nonsensical film. I will add the Jackson Trent did a fine job portraying a brainless, arrogant, psycho Cal.

If I had the opportunity to rewrite this movie, I would not include the criminal mischief and arrests. I would simply have Cal, Samantha, and Charlie regrouping and hiking into Ape Canyon. The climax of the movie would be all 3 of them tracking footprints and then eventually seeing a Sasquatch at a distance in a clearing. Perhaps drinking from a lake, or picking berries from bushes on the edge of the woods. They would witness its activities for a few brief moments before it disappeared back into the woods. Both Cal and Charlie will then have been fulfilled/justified, and Samantha would have come away from the experience with a new respect for Cal and an awe for what she had witnessed. The three of them would have received "healing" on multiple levels, bringing a sense of closure to their characters. A missed opportunity indeed.

Trailer—Ape Canyon