User Reviews

Jordan Blum directs this entry in the myriad of Bigfoot movies. A raging wild fire rips through Bear Valley National Park. Shift after shift, firefighters try to contain the blaze that has ousted animals from their habitat. Animals, critters and beasts big and small are displaced. After the flames are under control several firefighters turn up mysteriously ripped apart as if they tangled with a large bear. Park Ranger Owen Fremont(Tony Becker)was just beginning to enjoy his job in the woods after working as a big city cop. Owen is forced to deal with angry campers wanting refunds and ready to leave their camps in the park due to rumors of a sasquatch-like creature on the loose. Old Jack Lund(Martin Kove)knows for sure of an animal resembling Bigfoot in the forest, because as a child he watched it maul his father to death. Not bad; but not that good either. Decent enough to spend a lazy afternoon or rainy night with. Others in the cast: Shane Callahan, Tom Turbiville, Robert Praigo, Lisa Wilcox, Ron Prather, the fetching Anna Enger and Jack Harrison as the creature.

Yet another bad, cheap Bigfoot creature feature, this time Martin Kove is a great white hunter who wants revenge for the monster killing his father when he was a child. Bear Valley National Park is the hunting grounds for this beast, forced out of its home by a fire that is growing worse. Dale Davis is one of those Bigfoot researchers who has devoted his life to finding its whereabouts enlisting the aid of Kove to get a true recording of the creature's existence so that all his scoffing critics would finally be proved wrong. Tony Becker is a forest ranger who is investigating the murder of firemen who seem to have been ripped to shreds by a bear or something. Becker's pregnant wife (Lisa Wilcox, "Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master", wasted in a minor part) waits for him to come home. Meanwhile, Anna Enger and her husband Quint Von Canon are on the lam after a convenience store robbery goes wrong resulting in a murder, hiding out in the forest and certain to come in contact with the Bigfoot themselves; Becker will encounter them, learn about their crimes, and attempt to arrest them. The movie is such a low budget affair that the Bigfoot murders mostly occur off-screen and none of the characters, except maybe Becker (although, Kove is fun as the uncouth and stubborn hunter who will not cooperate with Davis even as the kid pays him for his help), are that particularly interesting. Davis, as the know-it-all with fancy gadgets supposedly hi-tech enough to find Bigfoot, often looks foolish, though he is sincere in his goal to catch an authentic recording as to have evidence to contradict the doubters who chastised him. The villain of the film, besides the violent Bigfoot on the rampage, is a developer with grandiose plans for the area, responsible for starting the fires as to level the park so he could get his plans underway.

For a big lad, Big Foot is very adept at killing people whilst keeping himself out of sight. We don't get to see him for a while, and when we do, we are given tantalising shots of silhouettes and various limbs speeding past.

At first, the tone of Savage seems to be somewhat tongue-in-cheek, with knowing performances from some of the cast. As time goes on, either the tone gets a little darker or I became used to some of the flippant moments. Either way, as the death toll mounts, we are effortlessly invited into darker waters (speaking of which, a solitary eye floating in the river is a moment that provides a perfect mixture of shock and mirth).

For a horror film, this isn't going satisfy everyone, although there are some moments of gore and some tension, even if it is difficult to sustain an atmosphere of terror in blazing sunlight. For a low budget project, setting the action amidst forest fires is ambitious (the resultant fires don't look like they need much controlling), but having those fires disturb the habitat of Bigfoot is an interesting plot device.

We all know the legend of the proto man who lives in the wilderness in America. This is one of those stories. Though nasty people have started a very small fire to what ends is a mystery at the start of the movie. Unfortunately it has so unusual side effects.

Big foot is back and he is in a bad mood as they have destroyed his gaff. He is not going to stop until he gets rid of the nasties and get his place back to the way it should be. In a way you could say that Big foot is an ecologist in this movie who tries to protect his habitat for future generations.

Or you could see it as nasty big foot attacking people as in the Snow beast, Sasquatch and loads of other big foot movies.

It is competently made and one of the better movies I have seen on the subject. It runs out of steam at the end hence the six out of ten review.