FEET OF DEATH (2024)

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Directed/Written by James Chick.
Check out the trailer here!!

The death of an influencer is just the latest in a series of maulings that have occurred in the area near Mount St. Helens. The deaths have been written off as animal attacks, but a forest ranger and a local cop have a theory that the legendary Bigfoot may be responsible.

I’ve seen a ton of Bigfoot films and by now, know the routine. A college or some kind of research group goes into woods to find bigfoot. They conquer all odds when no one else has done so and actually find Bigfoot. Bigfoot attacks group, killing most of them, except for John Schneider. So when a film comes along and actually tries to tell a different kind of story, I have to give it some appreciation. FEET OF DEATH tries to do some different things with the Bigfoot legend. Some of it reminds me of SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED, while other parts feel like a lot of time and energy was put into the script to take it some new places, looking at how rangers and cops investigate these types of paranormal occurrences, or rather, rely on any excuse other than Bigfoot to explain away the sightings. It also goes to some very dark places towards the end, which was appreciated. But I don’t want to spoil too much.

Yes, the acting isn’t top tier, but it isn’t awful either. There is an awful lot of drama here as the forest ranger lost his wife to an attack a year ago and he is still scarred by the loss. I really liked the heartfelt discussion between the forest ranger and his supervisor right before the climax as it felt natural and resonated quite a bit.

The script has some issues as FEET OF DEATH relies a little too much on down-home colloquialisms and gets very expositiony during the climax which extends the runtime to a way too-long hour and forty-five minutes. Also, though both the forest ranger and the cop clearly see a man attacked by bigfoot on some trail cam footage, the ranger seems to still doubt the existence of the monster. It just felt as if the script made him stubborn and cynical only to make more time for arguments between the two main characters.

The Bigfoot is pretty well done here. While it is obviously a man in a suit, the actor hunches over and really acts like a primate, rather than simply strolling around upright like a guy in a snowsuit. At times, he uses his arms to walk on all fours when it pounces to attack. The face is also articulated decently, though most of the time it is obscured by shadow.

I’m going to give FEET OF DEATH a score of Two Feets and One Toe.

That’s better than average. Again, new ideas are what the Bigfoot genre really needs as pretty much all of them follow the same path. It’s low budget, but FEET OF DEATH at least tries to tell a new story.