Riley Keough and Jesse Eisenberg get Primitive as they Relieve Themselves of Society 

DIRECTED BY DAVID ZELLNER & NATHAN ZELLNER/2024

Part warped lark, part hopelessly matted thicket, the latest oddity from the brothers Zellner is nothing if not their most pronounced effort.  Sasquatch Sunset can’t quite follow in the steps of their previous projects, Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter (2014) and Damsel (2018), if only for the depth of its footprint.  Despite wild, nearly unfathomable big-swing performances by big fat Hollywood movie stars Jesse Eisenberg and Riley Keough- they are acting through full-body hairy bigfoot costumes which are complete with genitalia, speaking only in grunts- there’s just not a lot of there there in them thar wooded hills.

Living peacefully among the pines is a small family of four Sasquatch.  (Fact: I had to look up the plural of “Sasquatch” for this. Turns out it’s “Sasquatch”).  Besides the Keough and Eisenberg Sasquatch (prominent within the film in that order) are a junior Sasquatch played by Christophe Zajac-Denek and another full-grown male Sasquatch played by co-director Nathan Zellner.  No names are ever discernible, so we’ll just have to refer to the individual characters by the actors playing them.

More meme than movie, much time is spent simply observing the not-so-big bigfoots (they’re all respective human height and proportion) as they meander through the forest engaging all manner of bodily functions and survival needs.  Some of it is hilarious (such as an unfortunate engagement with a turtle), some is eyerollingly juvenile, much is just kinda dull.  None of those are grisly negatives per se, but when left to carry a film that clearly seems to think it’s making a much greater point, the bits don’t altogether support the beast.

That said, there’s little else like Sasquatch Sunset, which, that alone makes it worth seeing in many a book.  It’s custom made to court a cult following, which, at the time of this writing, it is all but certain to do.  Heck, it probably already has.  It’s the kind of movie that the sun rises and sets on its “WTF factor.”  

That also said, the straining point of Sasquatch Sunset is not an unworthy one.  All along the way to its very Ari Aster-esque ending (Ari Aster of “From Executive Producer Ari Aster” fame, per this film’s poster), the Zellner bros. harshly and/or mundanely depict that life, in its most natural state, is grossly mechanical and led by our basest needs and urges.  As we as a species aggressively try to clear out, dress up, and push beyond our inescapable and often icky base-ness, the question emerges, “Where does that leave us?”  Oh crap, maybe Sasquatch Sunset is a really smart movie after all!

Whatever it is, whatever it ends up being, now’s the time to put on your best monkey suit and venture out into the woods and into the sunset.  It is, after all, what we’re here for.

  • While I was typing this review and hashing out just what this movie is, my brother sent me a video of a QVC pitch from 2002 for a countertop “bologna folder.”  That’s right, a pointless cumbersome contraption that one uses to fold processed bologna slices.  Something straight from the mind and hands of Rand Peltzer of Gremlins fame, it turns out that it’s thankfully just a perfectly pulled-off April Fool’s joke.  But the fact that it’s so stupid yet so believable remains.  It’s kind of societal indignity may be preferable the occasional violent bobcat troubles and lack of verbal language… but to what degree?  In the meantime, Mark Zuckerberg and Elvis’ granddaughter are completely covered in fur and rubber and discharging from every orifice for the pleasure of moviegoers.  I personally find the bologna folder funnier.