By: Joseph Perry (Twitter/X)
Writer: When It Was Cool
Also Featured At: Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel, B&S About Movies, The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict, and Diabolique Magazine, and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum.
Film Review: On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients
I’ve reviewed several high-strangeness documentaries from the reliable filmmakers at Small Town Monsters (links to previous reviews are below), and while the quality is always high, with the group’s latest effort On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients, director Seth Breedlove takes a more personal approach to the search for Sasquatch. While presenting the usual fascinating local color and eyewitness accounts for which Small Town Monsters films are known, Breedlove also dives into his family history in and love of the Appalachians, where his family has deep roots.
Clocking in at two hours and 20 minutes, On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients never felt long to me. The time is spent well and the information presented is engrossing, discussing the Breedlove family history, geography and history of the Appalachians, the possibility of how the area might be able to house a Bigfoot population, and the long history of the cryptid — starting with Native Americans, well before it was given any of its current names — in the area, as well as tales of feral humans and unsolved disappearances there.
As always with documentaries from Breedlove and company, the technical aspects are top notch. The cinematography of the beautiful Appalachians is gorgeous, and the artistic renderings of Sasquatch are varied and look fantastic. The eyewitnesses come across as reliable and honest in what they believe they encountered, and local historians add intriguing information.
If you have never watched a Small Town Monsters documentary before, On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients is a truly excellent place to start. If you are a regular viewer, you are likely to find this the strongest, and certainly the most personal, of their works so far.
On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients launched exclusively on Amazon Prime Video on September 10th. A Blu-ray (SRP $19.99) and DVD (SRP ($14.99) will be available exclusively from the Small Town Monsters shop. For more information, visit https://www.smalltownmonsters.com/.
Previous When It Was Cool reviews of Small Town Monsters documentaries:
https://www.whenitwascool.com/on-the-trail-of-bigfoot-the-journey-2021-film-review
https://www.whenitwascool.com/the-mothman-legacy-film-review
https://www.whenitwascool.com/on-the-trail-of-ufos-dark-sky-2021-film-review
https://www.whenitwascool.com/midwest-weirdfest-film-review-on-the-trail-of-ufos
https://www.whenitwascool.com/invasion-on-chestnut-ridge-review
Joseph Perry writes for the websites Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), B&S About Movies (bandsaboutmovies.com), The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict (gbvreviews.com), and Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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