BIGFOOT VS. D.B. COOPER (2014) ** ½

David DeCoteau’s Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper offers us one of the oddest, obscure pairings of on-screen adversaries in cinema history.  I mean everyone knows and loves Bigfoot, but will anyone under fifty even remember who D.B. Cooper was?  Something tells me today’s audiences would have a better idea who D.B. Sweeney is. 

Anyway, the movie begins with an eleven-minute pre-title scene of our hero Bernie (Jordan Rodriguez) walking shirtless through the woods.  In real time.  DeCoteau’s attention to detail in this scene is almost Warholian as we see every blessed step of his journey.  There’s no payoff or anything.  It’s just an excuse for DeCoteau to show off Rodriguez’s chiseled abs.

This is almost immediately followed up by a nine-minute scene of two other shirtless guys jogging.  After their jog, they change clothes.  That is to say, they change their shorts.  I don’t even think they bothered to pack a shirt.

Hot off the heels of that perplexing scene there are not one, not two, not three, but FOUR consecutive scenes where guys strip down to their underwear and pose with guns in front of a mirror.  Oh, and did I mention Bigfoot has been voyeuristically watching them the whole time?  This movie is amazing. 

If you’re wondering what D.B. Cooper has to do with all this, fear not.  The narrator, Bernie’s present-day self, tells us all the sordid details of Cooper’s daring mid-air heist in between the scenes of guys walking around in their underwear.  Oh, I guess I should tell you the narrator is played by none other than Eric Roberts.  I have a sneaking suspicion that Roberts’ narration was taken during the same recording session as the one for DeCoteau’s A Talking Cat.  That is to say, DeCoteau just recorded a phone conversation he had with Roberts and put it into a movie.

Did I mention the characters have all congregated in the woods for a pre-wedding turkey shoot?  That is supposed to explain why the guys walk around in their underwear holding rifles.  It does not explain why supposedly seasoned hunters would venture out into the woods with their guns ready to hunt and not wear camouflage, let alone a shirt.

Seriously, the shirt budget for this movie was virtually nonexistent.  

There’s more.  A lot more.  There’s a long shower scene where a guy spends a long time washing one specific part of his anatomy.  There’s a scene where a guy goes looking for another guy and says, “Morgan…” about 128 times in a span of eight minutes.  There are shots that alternate from day to night in the same scene, just like an Ed Wood movie. 

Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper is not a good movie in a traditional sense.  Like at all.  However, I must give DeCoteau credit.  He shamelessly projected his cinematic obsessions onto the screen and committed to it like few others have ever dared.  Say what you will about it, but it’s all his.  Only DeCoteau could make it, which is the sign of a true auteur. 

There is barely seven minutes of plot in the seventy-six-minute running time.  You also have to wait until the seventy-minute mark to finally see the confrontation between the two titular characters.  Some may feel cheated because of that.  Then again, the revelation that Bigfoot’s mythology operates on werewolf logic is almost worth the wait.  

One thing I try not to call directors out on is self-indulgence.  I mean why make a movie unless you can indulge yourself?  This might be the most self-indulgent movie of all time.  Never before has someone’s cinematic fetishes been so brazenly displayed for the world to see.  You have to admire that level of confidence.  

Alfred Hitchcock had his blondes.  Russ Meyer had his impossibly busty women.  David DeCoteau has guys with rock-hard six packs in boxer briefs.

Let’s face it.  Women in these movies have been crassly objectified for years.  It’s about time the guys were too.  

I guess what I’m trying to say is that this is quite possibly the greatest gay bigfoot voyeur movie of all time.  

If we are judging Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper on the merits of what conventional pundits consider to be “good”, it would be a One Star movie, if not lower.  If, however, we are judging it as a director working at the height of his powers, shamelessly giving in to his desires and putting it all out there for the world to see, it’s a Four Star deal, easily.  So, we’ll split the difference and call it ** ½.  

Bigfoot vs. D.B. Cooper exists in a realm where Star Ratings don’t exist.  It must be experienced to be believed.  I don’t know if I can quite call it “The Next Plan 9” or anything, but it’s certainly one of the most unforgettable cult movies I’ve seen in recent memory.