Sasqua (1975, Channon Scot)

During the 70s drive-in heyday of low-budget sasquatch-horror, a movie called "Sasqua" pretty much came and went and was considered lost for about 35 years. A few years ago, a rough-cut of the film was unearthed by a faithful underground-cinema fanatic from Poland. After some improvements were made to what was known to be the only existing copy of the film, a few copies were doled out to a few selected reviewers. I recently re-experienced this previously forgotten gem in all of it's bygone 'grindhouse' era glory.

It's about a group of hippies who arrive out in the woods to start up their commune. They just end up struggling through their racial tensions as well as the murderous "sasqua" (I'm going to assume that's plural for "sasquatch"...) lurking nearby...

Apparently, something happened during the production of this film that resulted in a total lack of sasquatch 'action' and more hippie arguing than I believe was intended based on some of the info I've read on the film's history. The movie mostly chronicles the day-to-day drama of life within the LEAST peaceful hippie commune in the world, but you get a few off-screen sasquatch attacks and a few recycled shots of the furry beasts prowling around. So, in all, they managed to cobble together enough bigfoot content to get the film by, but it must be said that the characters in this movie - while highly underdeveloped - are fairly entertaining, especially the "brothas" who actually go bigfoot hunting with switchblades like true gangsta's. Also got James Whitworth - better known as Jupiter from the original "Hill Have Eyes" - in one of the leads.

So, yeah. "Sasqua" is cheezy and a bit 'confused' in what it's trying to accomplish, but it's an interesting artifact that fell into total obscurity for so long, so one really can't help but appreciate the story behind it. It just needed more bigfeet...

Big thanks to Humanoid of Flesh!