This is one of those low-budget movies that thinks that location can substitute for a lack of a good story, coherent character motivations, good acting and competent filmmaking techniques. Specifically, these people got permission to film in a couple beautiful parks in California and apparently decided that this was enough to make a good family film.

But alas the shots of nature manage to not even be worthwhile. Somehow, these beautiful parks are rendered rather nondescript.  But that’s only one of the many problems:

• As you might imagine from a low-budget ’80s film about Bigfoot that you’ve never heard of, the acting is rather awful. (Not just the acting but sometimes the sound seems to have been added in post, making it seem even worse.)
• The story is one I’m sure they stole from another source (or a combination of sources): mystical creature warns  young person about danger to their family member but nobody believes young person. But is barely coherent given that the thing that Bigfoot tells the boy he must warn his father about only happens because the boy warns his father…
• The music is pretty awful. (The best is the closing credits song, which is incredibly awful, in the vocal performance, in the lyrics and how over-done the whole thing is. It’s probably worth finding it on YouTube.)
• But probably the most aggravating thing of the whole movie is the kid, who just runs off constantly. He’s constantly being told to do something and he’s constantly running off. Even when nobody’s telling him to stay put, he’s running off somewhere. (I guess he’s been called by Bigfoot or something.)

I watched this via Mystery Science Theater 3000 and feel lucky having seen it through that medium instead of watching it normally (not that I would have) because this is one of those movies that, while barely competent, is so unrelentingly mediocre and blah that it’s worse than something more poorly made.

2/10