I enjoyed “The Bloody Rage of BigFoot” a lot. This movie’s reach does not exceed its grasp – it knows what it is and does it surprisingly well. Writer/director James Baack obviously knows and respects the genre. Well done.

The actresses (Andrea Hutchison, Tina Boivin) are very good in their lead roles, and mostly the acting was surprisingly effective throughout. Ron Feyereisen plays a couple characters and has great screen presence. BRoBF works best overall in the scenes he is in. I found Feyereisen’s (apparent) improvisation in the black-and-white sanitarium scenes especially good. His Knutson character coulda been a little less angry during the Sasquatch hunt at the end, but the character’s ambiguity in not shooting and then having empathy for BigFoot gives his character some unexpected depth. Nicely done.

There are a couple eerily surrealistic scenes, one including maniacal clowns inexplicably dubbed “Pus E.” (Feyereisen again) and “Slappy” (Baack). Weird, weird stuff but just try and look away. Can’t be done.

The film’s construction holds up well. Knutson’s recalling of events in flashback while in a mental hospital is surprisingly (because it could have come across as clichéd) effective. It is also nice use of the Hitchcockian mechanism in its depiction of “The Man Who No One Believes.”

Some interesting cinematography too; menacing/lonely shots of the prison and other sites. I liked a lot of the music cues, with the random piano “plink” especially eerie and effective. Some of the F/X were unnecessary and perhaps overly derivative (I’m thinking specifically of the grainy black and white scenes during the witch sequence), but mostly worked fine.

I laughed a lot, which is a nice balance to the mayhem. The running joke about Knutson’s name works, and when the Professor (Baack) inexplicably blurts “I hate bees!” I cracked up. Nods to the Loch Ness monster, Svengoolie, and Jaws (during the mayor scene) were most appreciated! Bob Rogers was really good as the mayor and the whole scene works well. Especially loved the repetitive “I don’t think we need to get into details” dialogue. Throwaway lines like “Help yourself to a banana” and correcting of the zoologist’s title were also quite humorous.

I also enjoyed the couple political comments, and inclusion of “Wolf News” was a nice touch. Missed opportunity (perhaps) in not including a promo for some type of political nut-job talk show. Coulda been funny.

All that said, the biggest negative of the film is its length. Some judicious editing of the running time would have made the film more clean, efficient, and enjoyable.