For whatever reason, found footage bigfoot is a tough one to nail. I mean, I'm partial to bigfoot movies, but something about the big fella just hasn't really lended itself well to the found footage genre thus far. The ones I've liked are generally either more action-oriented (Exists) or maybe not even bigfoot movies at all (Willow Creek). I'm always hoping to get more of a creeping-terror type bigfoot found footager - while the "noises outside the cabin" are always a good way to build some tension, from there things usually just devolve into a blurry mess of first-person chase scenes. Unfortunately, Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes doesn't really deliver anything new. It's not terrible, but it's not all that good either. If you are a fan of bigfoot and found footage (as I am), it's passable. But it's certainly not going to win over any haters of either genre.
Also, my spider sense was tingling after this title card came up right away:
It says: "The Lost Coast, a part of Northwest California, has the highest number of Sasquatch sightings than any other region." Is that even grammatically correct? Even if it is, it sounds pretty damned awkward. I get what they're going for, but it's not exactly putting your best foot forward.
Anyhow, The Lost Coast Tapes is about an annoying wannabe reality show host named Sean who has put his life savings into shooting the pilot episode of a show he'll call "Hoax Busters" or some such thing. Basically, he's gotten wind of Carl, a mountain man who lives off the grid in rural California (in the Lost Coast, naturally - and there is no cell phone coverage out there, in case you were wondering). Carl claims to have the carcass of a juvenile sasquatch, and has agreed to let Sean and his crew come up and shoot the show. Carl will let them stay in his cabin, cook them some mountain man food, and give them the bigfoot - all for the bargain price of $75,000.
Accompanying Sean out to the compound is the usual motley crew of monster-fodder. He's got his best friend/camera man Darryl, his new agey producer (and ex-girlfriend) Robyn, and the "wacky" and easily frightened sound guy Kevin. As you would expect, things do not go as planned, and the whole crew ends up in a fight for their lives.
I guess the biggest issue I had with The Lost Coast Tapes is that the characters kind of suck. Sean is just an obnoxious, one-note annoyance - for the film to work, you have to kind of sympathize with him, but it's just impossible to do with the way he's presented here. He's an annoying host (he out Bagan's Zak Bagans by a ton in his stupid host segments), really rude to Carl (pretty much consistently calling him a fraud - then why'd you give him 75K?)... and if you took a drink every time he says some variation of "just keep filming"... well, you'd get a good buzz going, at least. And he just doesn't gel with the other characters. There's no noticeable chemistry with his ex Robyn, and he doesn't seem to care if any of his friends/crew live or die. I can't say if it's the actor or the character, but Sean just straight up doesn't work for me in this film.
Also, the film relies a bit too much on intentional humor - mostly through the character of Kevin. He's a scaredy-cat nerd, and the film won't let you forget it. It isn't all that often that a found footager will try so hard to be funny, and most of the jokes here miss their mark.
The bright spot is Frank Ashmore as Carl (the mountain man/sasquatch hunter). Despite looking far too much like one of the guys from that asinine Finding Bigfoot show, he is probably the most interesting character here. He never seems super-realistic or anything - I'm not sure why an "off-the-grid" guy would invite a camera crew into his compound - but "good characters" are not easy to come by in The Lost Coast Tapes, so you've got to take what you can get. I liked the set-up of his compound too - I haven't been to a lot of crazy mountain man lairs in my day, but this one seemed realistic enough. And luckily, the film makes no mention of politics.
As far as the bigfoot/horror business goes, Lost Coast is okay. You end up settling for a lot of "ape-costumed guy moving around in the back of the frame unbeknownst to our characters" kinds of scares, but it works for what it is. There's not an awful lot by way of gore or tension, but there is some okay found footage chase action. It's never super-intense but it's well done.
One kind of frustrating thing about the film is that you never really get a firm understanding of just what is going on. I'm all right with films being vague or whatever, but I got the distinct feeling that the filmmakers here just went with vagueness because it was easier than giving a solid explanation. Plus, you can just have all kinds of weird shit happen for no reason if you aren't beholden to explaining it, right?
Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes is about as middle of the road as you can get. The found footage action is serviceable - and there's some fun enough stuff for cinematic bigfoot fans. The non Bigfoot stuff is pretty rough, but never dreadful. So I don't know that I would go out of my way to see it. But if you are really hankering for a found footage bigfoot film, The Lost Coast Tapes is one of them.
I would not really recommend this film.
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