DVD Review: Hunting The Legend

By Brad Henderson

Ever since The Legend Of Boggy Creek there has been a plethora of Bigfoot films. Luckily Bigfoot is something I’m slightly obsessed with, so I love how this has become a full-blown subgenre that is still booming to this day.

Sadly, there are quite a few films that fall flat, but even though they are not the greatest, deep down I’m still happy they exist. Now the industry is exploring the found footage format to tell their stories of this mythical creature. Recently we have had Bigfoot: The Lost Coast Tapes, Willow Creek, The Woodsman, Bigfoot Country, the upcoming Exists, and now Hunting The Legend. I’m fine with the subgenre and I’m down with the found footage aspect, but I would prefer something new in these films.

We already know that Bigfoot “exists” in these films so having it be a surprise is a little silly to me. Now if there were another story that dug a little deeper into this creature, it would be a different thing. Instead, we are left with people walking around with cameras and bitching about Bigfoot. Then it shows up in the last 10 minutes and our movie is over.

Now you might ask, isn’t that what a lot of found footage films do? Yes and no. Most of the time we don’t know what is actually out there in the other films. We don’t know what the killer/creature/person looks like so it is a little more exciting. With Bigfoot we already know what he looks like so keeping the reveal from us is ridiculous because the look never changes. This is why these films are suffering; they aren’t trying anything new with the look or the story. (Well, aside from The Lost Coast Tapes. That story was freaking nuts but at least they went another way with it.)

Hunting The Legend is very basic. A kid loses his father to Bigfoot and a few years later he goes out with cameras to hunt and kill Bigfoot. Now, this might sound a little interesting, but like I said, it is very basic. If it was presented as more of an action film it would be different, but instead the kid takes his girlfriend, his best friend, and some camera people and they wander around for an hour trying to find Bigfoot. I imagine you can tell me the ending just from that. It is almost as if these films spoil themselves because they all kind of end up the same.

There isn’t much more to tell you with a film like this. Watch it and you can see exactly what I’m talking about. I’m uncertain why there is an abundance of these films at the moment. They are all following the same format and someone needs to put a different spin on these films or everyone is going to get burnt out really quickly (or they already have).

Hunting The Legend was released on DVD on July 8 via Image Entertainment.