TAHOE JOE (2022)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed and written by Dillon Brown, Michael Rock.
Check out the trailer here!!

When a soldier goes missing in the Nevada forests near Lake Tahoe, his son reaches out to his wartime buddy and survival expert Michael Rock to track him down. Turns out the missing soldier was looking for the elusive Tahoe Joe, a nickname for a bipedal cryptid that has been seen lurking around the lake and woods. Rock teams up with filmmaker Dillon Brown and a paranoid guide named Ben (Hunter Nino) to go look for the missing friend and get hard evidence that Tahoe Joe exists by making a documentary using a drone, go pros, and a handheld camera.

I have to give it to Dillon Brown, Michael Rock, and the rest of the team behind TAHOE JOE; they try awful hard to make a capable movie. It seems these two filmmakers who play themselves in the movie know all of the basics of making this type of found footage film. There’s a whole lot of getting to know you time. There’s a lot of evidence gathered and examined before heading out into the Sierra Nevada mountains. It isn’t really until the forty-five-minute mark that they really take off and head out on the hike to find the monster and that’s an awful long wait to get there. So get ready for a lot of run-time wasted on banal things proving that there really isn’t a lot to this story.

Michael Rock is a solid actor with a real presence as a tough guy. His casual conversations with Dillon Brown leading up to the event feel realistic and natural, though not a lot of acting stretches are required for their banter. These are not trained actors, but they do the job and say the lines decently. THe problem is that with the footage found before the hike, they already kind of have proof that the monster exists. It makes you wonder why they decide to go out there in the middle of the woods despite that knowledge. It’s supposed to be some kind of band of brothers honor thing, but it isn’t made clear what they are supposed to do if they do confront the monster.

The one thing TAHOE JOE does well is examine the conspiracy aspect of the government’s knowledge of the Bigfoot in a detailed and effective way. Though it is first presented by their paranoid guide, the film shows restraint in divulging any information and amping up the paranoia. This is one of the more underused aspects in the Squatchsploitation genre, so TAHOE JOE has that going for it.

The Bigfoot suit is simply a mass of weeds and fur with some teeth. Looks like a modified gunny suit. Points go for keeping it obscure enough so we don’t see much of the faults of the costume, but it simply looks like a walking haystack and fails to be scary or at least isn’t framed to highlight that aspect of it.

I’m going to give TAHOE JOE One foot and two toes!

Look, this is not a great movie. It attempts to provide some scares and drama, but the ability just isn’t there. I do dig the government angle, so it gets some toes for that. Otherwise, while this seems like a noble low budget effort by folks who sincerely love the genre, it doesn’t deliver the goods.